This book opens the "black box" of software sourcing by explaining how dynamic software alignment is established and how it impacts business performance outcomes. By investigating how software-sourcing modes are related to value generation in the post-implementation phase, it shows researchers and managers the impact logic of on-demand, on-premises, and in-house software on dynamic fit and process-level performance outcomes in a client organization. It describes dynamic IT alignment as the key to success in a fast-moving digital world with software-as-a-service on the rise and highlights the fact that today companies can choose between developing software in-house (make) or sourcing packaged systems in an on-premises (buy) or an on-demand (lease) mode. This book is the first to explicitly compare these sourcing arrangements with each other in terms of alignment and business performance.

After the introduction of Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) and Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) applications to many business organizations, the functional issues such as technical problems, security threats, persistent end-user resistance, and the excessive hidden costs of these systems began coming to light. Cases on Enterprise Information Systems and Implementation Stages: Learning from the Gulf Region focuses on the Gulf region and its lead on the enterprise systems adoption which has exceeded those in many developed countries. This reference book highlights experiences implementing EIS, delivering a comprehensive multi-perspective account of EIS issues, and explores the concerns, risks, and critical success factors of EIS for a variety of organizations. It aims to be beneficial for both practitioners and academics alike.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to probability and stochastic processes, and shows how these subjects may be applied in computer performance modeling. The author's aim is to derive probability theory in a way that highlights the complementary nature of its formal, intuitive, and applicative aspects while illustrating how the theory is applied in a variety of settings. Readers are assumed to be familiar with elementary linear algebra and calculus, including being conversant with limits, but otherwise, this book provides a self-contained approach suitable for graduate or advanced undergraduate students. The first half of the book covers the basic concepts of probability, including combinatorics, expectation, random variables, and fundamental theorems. In the second half of the book, the reader is introduced to stochastic processes. Subjects covered include renewal processes, queueing theory, Markov processes, matrix geometric techniques, reversibility, and networks of queues. Examples and applications are drawn from problems in computer performance modeling. Throughout, large numbers of exercises of varying degrees of difficulty will help to secure a reader's understanding of these important and fascinating subjects.

This book is the first comprehensive survey of the field of constraint databases, written by leading researchers. Constraint databases are a fairly new and active area of database research. The key idea is that constraints, such as linear or polynomial equations, are used to represent large, or even infinite, sets in a compact way. The ability to deal with infinite sets makes constraint databases particularly promising as a technology for integrating spatial and temporal data with standard relational databases. Constraint databases bring techniques from a variety of fields, such as logic and model theory, algebraic and computational geometry, as well as symbolic computation, to the design and analysis of data models and query languages.

Python Programming and Numerical Methods: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists introduces programming tools and numerical methods to engineering and science students, with the goal of helping the students to develop good computational problem-solving techniques through the use of numerical methods and the Python programming language. Part One introduces fundamental programming concepts, using simple examples to put new concepts quickly into practice. Part Two covers the fundamentals of algorithms and numerical analysis at a level that allows students to quickly apply results in practical settings.

Within 50 years computers could have capabilities rivaling that of the human brain. Effective utilization of such new technologies poses a significant challenge to the computer science community, which finds an ever increasing number of complex applications within its technological grasp. In addition to increased complexity, most, if not all, of these applications are also accompanied by an inherent increase in the consequences associated with their failure, resulting in the construction of increasingly high consequence complex systems. Systems that fall within this domain are beyond the ability to construct in a brute force manner. There are two major challenges in developing such systems: manage complexity and provide sufficient evidence that the system satisfies dependability constraints. Society is tacitly relying on the research community to solve these problems on a timetable satisfying the needs of industry. While impressive results have been obtained, the research community is still, to some extent, hamstrung by the lack of realistic case study problems against which to benchmark new techniques and approaches. The purpose of High Integrity Software is to explore a cross-section of some of the most promising areas of research in the construction of high consequence complex systems, for example, a case study involving the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. Because of its scope and complexity, the BART case study is being recognized by many in the formal methods community as one of the definitive case study problems, and as such provides a valuable insight into the challenges that must be faced in the upcoming years. High Integrity Software is suitable as a secondary text for agraduate level course, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

Multimedia Mining: A Highway to Intelligent Multimedia Documents brings together experts in digital media content analysis, state-of-art data mining and knowledge discovery in multimedia database systems, knowledge engineers and domain experts from diverse applied disciplines.

Multimedia documents are ubiquitous and often required, if not essential, in many applications today. This phenomenon has made multimedia documents widespread and extremely large. There are tools for managing and searching within these collections, but the need for tools to extract hidden useful knowledge embedded within multimedia objects is becoming pressing and central for many decision-making applications. The tools needed today are tools for discovering relationships between objects or segments within multimedia document components, such as classifying images based on their content, extracting patterns in sound, categorizing speech and music, and recognizing and tracking objects in video streams.

This volume introduces machine learning techniques that are particularly powerful and effective for modeling multimedia data and common tasks of multimedia content analysis. It systematically covers key machine learning techniques in an intuitive fashion and demonstrates their applications through case studies. Coverage includes examples of unsupervised learning, generative models and discriminative models. In addition, the book examines Maximum Margin Markov (M3) networks, which strive to combine the advantages of both the graphical models and Support Vector Machines (SVM).

With the New Perspectives' critical-thinking, problem-solving approach, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of Microsoft Office Access 2010 and will learn how to take advantage of the flexibility it offers. Case-based tutorials challenge students to apply what they are learning to real-life tasks, preparing them to easily transfer skills to new situations. With New Perspectives, students understand why they're learning what they're learning and are better situated to retain skills beyond the classroom.

The Expanded Edition Guide to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a 512-page hardcover guidebook covering everything in the main game as well as the two Expansion Pass DLC packs "The Master Trials" and "The Champions' Ballad". Includes: Expansion Pass concept art gallery; dedicated chapters covering both Expansion Passes; Reference and Analysis chapter; Maps chapter; all-new hardcover and an extensive 4-page Index. MAPS CHAPTER: a dedicated 36-page atlas of Hyrule showing the exact location of all Korok seeds and treasure chests. REFERENCE & ANALYSIS CHAPTER: contains a farming manual showing how to acquire all items of prime interest efficiently; the best weapons and armor upgrades; the most effective recipes; the most lucrative gemstone mining spots; amiibo; merchants and much more. EXPANSION PASS CHAPTERS: 34 pages dedicated to "The Master Trials" and "The Champions' Ballad". 100% AUTHORITATIVE: all side quests, all shrines of Trials and all information about collectible items fully mapped out; also includes optional challenges, mini-games, unlockables, Easter eggs, and more. At-A-GLANCE WALKTHROUGHS: annotated maps and screenshots show the optimal way through every quest and dungeon. LARGE MAP POSTER: two-sided and fully-annotated - covering the immense game area. CONCEPT ART: direct from the development team and beautifully laid out across two sections: 16 pages of concept art from "The Master Trials" and "The Champions' Ballad" as well as a 16-page art tour of the main game. PUZZLE MASTER: every single puzzle and riddle unraveled with refined, visual solutions. EXPERT COMBAT STRATEGY: practical, reproducible tactics to crush all enemies and bosses. COMPREHENSIVE REFERENCES: exhaustive appraisals of all items and monsters - including key parameters that are hidden in the game. EASE OF USE: Instant searches, print navigation systems, extensive 4-page index and detailed map poster give you immediate access to the information you need. PREMIUM HARDCOVER: with guide pages printed on superior-quality art paper.

This new edition includes the latest advances and developments in computational probability involving A Probability Programming Language (APPL). The book examines and presents, in a systematic manner, computational probability methods that encompass data structures and algorithms. The developed techniques address problems that require exact probability calculations, many of which have been considered intractable in the past. The book addresses the plight of the probabilist by providing algorithms to perform calculations associated with random variables. Computational Probability: Algorithms and Applications in the Mathematical Sciences, 2nd Edition begins with an introductory chapter that contains short examples involving the elementary use of APPL. Chapter 2 reviews the Maple data structures and functions necessary to implement APPL. This is followed by a discussion of the development of the data structures and algorithms (Chapters 3-6 for continuous random variables and Chapters 7-9 for discrete random variables) used in APPL. The book concludes with Chapters 10-15 introducing a sampling of various applications in the mathematical sciences. This book should appeal to researchers in the mathematical sciences with an interest in applied probability and instructors using the book for a special topics course in computational probability taught in a mathematics, statistics, operations research, management science, or industrial engineering department.

Love the game? Then you'll love this Annual. It's packed with essential tips, secrets and info guaranteed to up your skill level and help you build an undefeatable crew. Read about each Legend and discover their unique personality, strengths and abilities. Get ready for action and excitement on every page!

This status report features the most recent developments in the field, spanning a wide range of topical areas in the computer simulation of condensed matter/materials physics. Both established and new topics are included, ranging from the statistical mechanics of classical magnetic spin models to electronic structure calculations, quantum simulations, and simulations of soft condensed matter.

Organisational complexity is an unavoidable aspect of all businesses, even larger ones, which can hinder their ability to react to sudden or disruptive change. However, with the implementation of enterprise architecture (EA), businesses are able to provide their leaders with the resources needed to address any arising challenges. A Systemic Perspective to Managing Complexity with Enterprise Architecture highlights the current advances in utilising enterprise architecture for managing organisational complexity. By demonstrating the value and usefulness of EA, this book serves as a reference for business leaders, managers, engineers, enterprise architects, and many others interested in new research and approaches to business complexity.

Changes and additions are sprinkled throughout. Among the significant new features are: * Markov-chain simulation (Sections 1. 3, 2. 6, 3. 6, 4. 3, 5. 4. 5, and 5. 5); * gradient estimation (Sections 1. 6, 2. 5, and 4. 9); * better handling of asynchronous observations (Sections 3. 3 and 3. 6); * radically updated treatment of indirect estimation (Section 3. 3); * new section on standardized time series (Section 3. 8); * better way to generate random integers (Section 6. 7. 1) and fractions (Appendix L, program UNIFL); * thirty-seven new problems plus improvements of old problems. Helpful comments by Peter Glynn, Barry Nelson, Lee Schruben, and Pierre Trudeau stimulated several changes. Our new random integer routine extends ideas of Aarni Perko. Our new random fraction routine implements Pierre L'Ecuyer's recommended composite generator and provides seeds to produce disjoint streams. We thank Springer-Verlag and its late editor, Walter Kaufmann-Bilhler, for inviting us to update the book for its second edition. Working with them has been a pleasure. Denise St-Michel again contributed invaluable text-editing assistance. Preface to the First Edition Simulation means driving a model of a system with suitable inputs and observing the corresponding outputs. It is widely applied in engineering, in business, and in the physical and social sciences.

Games and simulations have emerged as new and effective tools for educational learning by providing interactivity and integration with online resources that are typically unavailable with traditional educational resources. Design, Utilization, and Analysis of Simulations and Game-Based Educational Worlds presents developments and evaluations of games and computer-mediated simulations in order to showcase a better understanding of the role of electronic games in multiple studies. This book is useful for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to gain a deeper comprehension of the relationship between research and practice of electronic gaming and simulations in the educational environment.

1.1. INTRODUCTION Plastic covering, either framed or floating, is now used worldwide to protect crops from unfavorable growing conditions, such as severe weather and insects and birds. Protected cultivation in the broad sense, including mulching, has been widely spread by the innovation of plastic films. Paper, straw, and glass were the main materials used before the era of plastics. Utilization of plastics in agriculture started in the developed countries and is now spreading to the developing countries. Early utilization of plastic was in cold regions, and plastic was mainly used for protection from the cold. Now plastic is used also for protection from wind, insects and diseases. The use of covering techniques started with a simple system such as mulching, then row covers and small tunnels were developed, and finally plastic houses. Floating mulch was an exception to this sequence: it was introduced rather recently, although it is a simple structure. New development of functional and inexpensive films triggered widespread use of floating mulch. Table 1.1. The use a/plastic mulch in the world (after Jouet, 2001).

This book contains contributions presented during the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning (MBR012), held on June 21-23 in Sestri Levante, Italy. Interdisciplinary researchers discuss in this volume how scientific cognition and other kinds of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important or creative changes in theories and concepts. Some of the contributions analyzed the problem of model-based reasoning in technology and stressed the issues of scientific and technological innovation. The book is divided in three main parts: models, mental models, representations; abduction, problem solving and practical reasoning; historical, epistemological and technological issues.

The volume is based on the papers that were presented at the international

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This book presents the state of the art in high-performance computing and simulation on modern supercomputer architectures. It covers trends in hardware and software development in general and the future of high-performance systems and heterogeneous architectures in particular. The application-related contributions cover computational fluid dynamics, material science, medical applications and climate research; innovative fields such as coupled multi-physics and multi-scale simulations are highlighted. All papers were chosen from presentations given at the 18th Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance held at the HLRS, University of Stuttgart, Germany in October 2013 and subsequent Workshop of the same name held at Tohoku University in March 2014.

The book provides a unified presentation of algorithms for association rule and sequential pattern discovery. For both mining problems, the presentation relies on the lattice structure of the search space. All algorithms are built as processes running on this structure. Proving their properties takes advantage of the mathematical properties of the structure. Mining for association rules and sequential patterns is known to be a problem with large computational complexity. The issue of designing efficient parallel algorithms should be considered as critical. Most algorithms in the book are devised for both sequential and parallel execution. Parallel algorithm design takes advantage of the lattice structure of the search space. Partitioning is performed via lattice recursive bisection. Database partitioning is also used as an additional source of parallelism.Part of the motivation for writing this book was postgraduate teaching. Since the book only assumes elementary mathematical knowledge in the domains of lattices, combinatorial optimization, probability calculus, and statistics, it is fit for use by undergraduate students as well. The algorithms are described in a C-like pseudo programming language. The computations are shown in great detail. This makes the book also fit for use by implementers: computer scientists in many domains as well as industry engineers.

Including the latest Microsoft 365 features and enhanced support for Mac users, Cengage's Illustrated Series (R) Collection, Microsoft (R) Office 365 (R) & Excel (R) 2021 Comprehensive, 1st edition, helps you quickly master the nuances of Microsoft (R) Office. Its concise, student-friendly approach uses a proven two-page layout that allows you to work through an entire task without turning the page. Each module begins with a brief overview of the principles covered while large, full-color screen images illustrate what you see on your computer. Module Learning Objectives are mapped to Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification objectives, and module scenarios are based on Burning Glass market insights data -- helping you sharpen the critical skills you need for real-world success. In addition, MindTap and SAM (Skills Assessment Manager) online resources help maximize your study time -- and results.

COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS Becoming a pervasive paradigm In recent years the area of collaborative networks is being consolidated as a new discipline (Camarinha-Matos, Afsarmanesh, 2005) that encompasses and gives more structured support to a large diversity of collaboration forms. In terms of applications, besides the "traditional" sectors represented by the advanced supply chains, virtual enterprises, virtual organizations, virtual teams, and their breading environments, new forms of collaborative structures are emerging in all sectors of the society. Examples can be found in e-government, intelligent transportation systems, collaborative virtual laboratories, agribusiness, elderly care, silver economy, etc. In some cases those developments tend to adopt a terminology that is specific of that domain; often the involved actors in a given domain are not fully aware of the developments in the mainstream research on collaborative networks. For instance, the grid community adopted the term "virtual organization" but focused mainly on the resource sharing perspective, ignoring most of the other aspects involved in collaboration. The European enterprise interoperability community, which was initially focused on the intra-enterprise aspects, is moving towards inter-enterprise collaboration. Collaborative networks are thus becoming a pervasive paradigm giving basis to new socio-organizational structures.