ITIL(R) 4 Direct, Plan and ImproveIf you've achieved your ITIL(R) 4 Foundation certificate, you're probably planning the next stage in your ITIL journey and which qualification to work towards. DPI provides essential knowledge and capabilities for service management professionals, supporting those involved in directing or planning based on strategy and continual improvement - a must-have skillset practitioners should seek beyond Foundation level. DPI is the only one of the ITIL 4 advanced level courses that leads to both Managing Professional (MP) and Strategic Leader (SL) status. The module is aimed at managers and aspiring managers at all levels, providing them with the practical skills needed to improve themselves and their organisation by way of effective strategic direction and delivering continual improvement. An excellent supplement to any training courseITIL(R) 4 Direct, Plan and Improve (DPI) - Your companion to the ITIL 4 Managing Professional and Strategic Leader DPI certification is a study guide designed to help students pass the ITIL(R) 4 Direct, Plan and Improve module. The majority of this book is based on the AXELOS ITIL(R) 4: Direct, Plan and Improve publication and the associated DPI Strategist syllabus. It provides students with the information they need to pass the DPI exam, and help them become a successful practitioner. Suitable for existing ITIL v3 experts, ITIL 4 Managing Professional (MP) students, ITSM (IT service management) practitioners who are adopting ITIL 4, approved training organisations, IT service managers, IT managers and those in IT support roles, the book covers: Key concepts: Scope, key principles and methods; The role of governance, risk and compliance; Continual improvement; Organisational change management; Measurement and reporting; Value streams and practices; and Exam preparation. A useful tool throughout your careerIn addition to being an essential study aid, the author - a seasoned ITSM professional - also provides additional guidance throughout the book which you can lean on once your training and exam are over. The book includes her own practical experience from which she gives advice and points to think about along the way so that you can refer back to this book for years to come - long after you've passed your exam. The essential link between your ITIL qualification and the real world - buy this book today!ITIL(R) is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. This book is an official AXELOS licensed product.

Politics, gut reactions, leaps of faith, and assumptions will never drive a successful business. With barriers to start a company being lowered every day, the rapid influx of new startups throughout every industry, and the constant chaos from within existing organizations, logic and sound decision making are commonly replaced with swift moving actions with only the short-term in mind. Decision makers are constantly moving to make businesses simpler, more fluid, more agile, and better. In this disaster of chaos one simple concept is easily left behind: thought. More specifically, what gets left behind is forethought. In The Scalability Coefficient, software expert and entrepreneur Trevor Hall outlines a new method of analyzing your business so you can accommodate the steady pace of modern business, while pushing your organization to success with complete, thoughtful decisions based off facts. Through the design of this engineering-centric method of business analysis, Trevor will describe the method of dissecting and organizing your business into its most atomic pieces and how to logically rebuild your thoughts as a holistic unit. By creating an organization's "Scalability Coefficient," you will have a new tool based directly off the facts that shape your company. And with that tool, you can make swift decisions to gain the highest level of efficiency both for the short-term while always considering the long-term visions and goals. Following an example of a fictitious business through the analysis, The Scalability Coefficient will describe the concepts through practical application which you can then apply to any company, team, or project. It demonstrates the complexities of a seemingly simple company by disassembling it into logical pieces, them piecing it back together with logic and thought, forming its custom "Scalability Coefficient" along the way. The end takeaway being the Coefficient, which acts as a fact-driven formula for driving critical business decisions.

Education and Technology for a Better World was the main theme for WCCE 2009. The conference highlights and explores different perspectives of this theme, covering all levels of formal education as well as informal learning and societal aspects of education. The conference was open to everyone involved in education and training. Additionally players from technological, societal, business and political fields outside education were invited to make relevant contributions within the theme: Education and Technology for a Better World. For several years the WCCE (World Conference on Computers in Education) has brought benefits to the fields of computer science and computers and education as well as to their communities. The contributions at WCCE include research projects and good practice presented in different formats from full papers to posters, demonstrations, panels, workshops and symposiums. The focus is not only on presentations of accepted contributions but also on discussions and input from all participants. The main goal of these conferences is to provide a forum for the discussion of ideas in all areas of computer science and human learning. They create a unique environment in which researchers and practitioners in the fields of computer science and human learning can interact, exchanging theories, experiments, techniques, applications and evaluations of initiatives supporting new developments that are potentially relevant for the development of these fields. They intend to serve as reference guidelines for the research community.

In this enthralling original graphic novel, meet the Pandaren, one of the most beloved (and mysterious) races in World of Warcraft! Li Li Stormstout, a precocious young student, lives atop a giant turtle. Li Li comes from a line of adventurers who left their homeland long ago to explore the world... But when Li Li runs away to find her famous uncle Chen, how will she survive Azeroth's perils?

Health Information Exchange: Navigating and Managing a Network of Health Information Systems, Second Edition, now fully updated, is a practical guide on how to understand, manage and make use of a health information exchange infrastructure, which moves patient-centered information within the health care system. The book informs and guides the development of new infrastructures as well as the management of existing and expanding infrastructures across the globe. Sections explore the reasons for the health information exchange (HIE) infrastructures, how to manage them, examines the key drivers of HIE, and barriers to their widespread use. In addition, the book explains the underlying technologies and methods for conducting HIE across communities as well as nations. Finally, the book explains the principles of governing an organization that chiefly moves protected health information around. The text unravels the complexities of HIE and provides guidance for those who need to access HIE data and support operations.

The complete guide to Excel 2019 Whether you are just starting out or an Excel novice, the Excel 2019 Bible is your comprehensive, go-to guide for all your Excel 2019 needs. Whether you use Excel at work or at home, you will be guided through the powerful new features and capabilities to take full advantage of what the updated version offers. Learn to incorporate templates, implement formulas, create pivot tables, analyze data, and much more. Navigate this powerful tool for business, home management, technical work, and much more with the only resource you need, Excel 2019 Bible. Create functional spreadsheets that work Master formulas, formatting, pivot tables, and more Get acquainted with Excel 2019's new features and tools Whether you need a walkthrough tutorial or an easy-to-navigate desk reference, the Excel 2019 Bible has you covered with complete coverage and clear expert guidance.

This volume presents the proceedings of ECSCW 2011, the 12th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Each conference offers an occasion to critically review our research field, which has been multidisciplinary and committed to high scientific standards, both theoretical and methodological, from its beginning. The papers this year focus on work and the enterprise as well as on the challenges of involving citizens, patients, etc. into collaborative settings. The papers embrace new theories, and discuss known ones. They contribute to the discussions on the blurring boundaries between home and work and on the ways we think about and study work. They introduce recent and emergent technologies, and study known social and collaborative technologies, such as wikis and video messages. Classical settings in computer supported cooperative work, e.g. meetings and standardization are also looked upon anew. With contributions from all over the world, the papers in interesting ways help focus on the European perspective in our community. The 22 papers selected for this conference deal with and reflect the lively debate currently ongoing in our field of research.

With more than 275 applied examples and 10 projects, Access users can quickly build database solutions with ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), perform database tasks with Jet/Access Structured Query Language (SQL) and export/import Access data to and from XML both manually and programmatically. The book, which covers the latest release of Access and earlier versions, is divided into five parts: an introduction to VBA programming, manipulating databases with ADO, using DDL, event programming, and using ASP and XML. The text will show you how to write and debug your programming code with the Visual Basic Editor; understand and use common VBA programming structures such as conditions, loops, arrays, and collections; code a ""message box"" and reprogram characteristics of a database; query and manipulate your database from a Web browser with Active Server Pages (ASP) and many more practical techniques. Features: Covers in great detail the latest version of Access and all of its features. Includes more than 275 applied examples and 10 projects. Covers Office Web Apps

Digital fiction has long been perceived as an experimental niche of electronic literature. Yet born-digital narratives thrive in mainstream culture, as communities of practice create and share digital fiction, filling in the gaps between the media they are given and the stories they seek. Neverending Stories explores the influences of literature and computing on digital fiction and how the practices and cultures of each have impacted who makes and plays digital fiction. Popular creativity emerges from subordinated groups often excluded from producing cultural resources, accepting the materials of capitalism and inverting them for their own carnivalesque uses. Popular digital fiction goes by many different names: webnovels, adventure games, visual novels, Twitter fiction, webcomics, Twine games, walking sims, alternate reality games, virtual reality films, interactive movies, enhanced books, transmedia universes, and many more. The book establishes digital fiction in a foundation of innovation, tracing its emergence in various guises around the world. It examines Infocom, whose commercial success with interactive fiction crumbled, in no small part, because of its failure to consider women as creators or consumers. It takes note of the brief flourish of commercial book apps and literary games. It connects practices of cognitive and conceptual interactivity, and textual multiplicity-dating to the origins of the print novel-to the feminine. It pushes into the technological future of narrative in immersive and mixed realities. It posits the transmedia franchises and the practices of fanfiction as examples of digital fiction that will continue indefinitely, regardless of academic notice or approval.

Successful games merge art and technology in truly unique ways. Fused under tight production deadlines and strict performance requirements, shaped by demanding player expectations, games are among the most complex software projects created today. Game AI Pro: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals covers both the art and the technology of game AI. Nothing covered is theory or guesswork. The book brings together the accumulated wisdom, cutting-edge ideas, and clever tricks and techniques of 54 of today's top game AI professionals. Some chapters present techniques that have been developed and passed down within the community for years while others discuss the most exciting new research and ideas from today's most innovative games. The book includes core algorithms that you'll need to succeed, such as behavior trees, utility theory, spatial representation, path planning, motion control, and tactical reasoning. It also describes tricks and techniques that will truly bring your game to life, including perception systems, social modeling, smart camera systems, player prediction, and even an AI sound designer. Throughout, the book discusses the optimizations and performance enhancements that enable your game to run while maintaining 60 frames per second.

Give life to your designs and keep your CAD skills fresh with Mastering AutoCAD 2021 and Mastering AutoCAD LT 2021 AutoCAD continues to be the tool of choice for architects, project managers, engineers, city planners, and other design professionals, and when the industry experts need to learn the latest CAD techniques and trends, they turn to Mastering AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. Packed with real-world examples, straightforward instructions, and downloadable project files, this edition of this bestselling AutoCAD reference has been fully updated for the latest features from the 2021 version of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. From getting familiar with the interface to preparing for Autodesk AutoCAD certification, Mastering AutoCAD 2021 and AutoCAD LT 2021 gives CAD professionals command of the software's core functions and complex capabilities. Develop AutoCAD drawings from concept to creation Use hatches, fields, and tables Work with dynamic blocks, attributes, drawing curves, and solid fills Apply 3D modeling and imaging techniques Customize your interface and configure template settings and styles Get ready for the Autodesk AutoCAD Certification exam Whether you're seeking on-the-job certification or just looking to dream big and draw, Mastering AutoCAD 2021 and AutoCAD LT 2021 is the ultimate guide to all things AutoCAD.

Possibly the most comprehensive overview of computer graphics as seen in the context of geometric modelling, this two volume work covers implementation and theory in a thorough and systematic fashion. Computer Graphics and Geometric Modelling: Mathematics, contains the mathematical background needed for the geometric modeling topics in computer graphics covered in the first volume. This volume begins with material from linear algebra and a discussion of the transformations in affine & projective geometry, followed by topics from advanced calculus & chapters on general topology, combinatorial topology, algebraic topology, differential topology, differential geometry, and finally algebraic geometry. Two important goals throughout were to explain the material thoroughly, and to make it self-contained. This volume by itself would make a good mathematics reference book, in particular for practitioners in the field of geometric modelling. Due to its broad coverage and emphasis on explanation it could be used as a text for introductory mathematics courses on some of the covered topics, such as topology (general, combinatorial, algebraic, and differential) and geometry (differential & algebraic).

This book focuses on two issues related to human figures: realtime dynamics computation and interactive motion generation. In spite of the growing interest in human figures as both physical robots and virtual characters, standard algorithms and tools for their kinematics and dynamics computation have not been investigated very much. "Simulating and Generating Motions of Human Figures" presents original algorithms to simulate, analyze, generate and control motions of human figures, all focusing on realtime and interactive computation. The book provides both practical methods for contact/collision simulation essential for the simulation of humanoid robots and virtual characters and a general framework for online, interactive motion generation of human figures based on the dynamics simulation algorithms.

Recent advances in computing, communication, and data storage have led to an increasing number of large digital libraries publicly available on the Internet. In addition to alphanumeric data, other modalities, including video play an important role in these libraries. Ordinary techniques will not retrieve required information from the enormous mass of data stored in digital video libraries. Instead of words, a video retrieval system deals with collections of video records. Therefore, the system is confronted with the problem of video understanding. The system gathers key information from a video in order to allow users to query semantics instead of raw video data or video features. Users expect tools that automatically understand and manipulate the video content in the same structured way as a traditional database manages numeric and textual data. Consequently, content-based search and retrieval of video data becomes a challenging and important problem.
This book focuses particularly on content-based video retrieval. After addressing basic concepts and techniques in the field, Content-Based Video Retrieval: A Database Perspective concentrates on the semantic gap problem, i.e., the problem of inferring semantics from raw video data, as the main problem of content-based video retrieval. This book identifies and proposes the integrated use of three different techniques to bridge the semantic gap, namely, spatio-temporal formalization methods, hidden Markov models, and dynamic Bayesian networks. As the problem is approached from a database perspective, the emphasis evolves from a database management system into a video database management system. This system allows a user to retrievethe desired video sequence among voluminous amounts of video data in an efficient and semantically meaningful way. This book also presents a modeling framework and a prototype of a content-based video management system that integrates the three methods and provides efficient, flexible, and scalable content-based video retrieval. The proposed approach is validated in the domain of sport videos for which some experimental results are presented.
Content-Based Video Retrieval: A Database Perspective is designed for a professional audience, composed of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable as a secondary text for graduate-level students in computer science and electrical engineering.

This volume on financial and economic simulations in Swarm marks the continued progress by a group of researchers to incorporate agent-based computer models as an important tool within their discipline. Swarm promotes agent-based computer models as a tool for the study of complex systems. A common language is leading to the growth of user communities in specific areas of application. Furthermore, by providing an organizing framework to guide the development of more problem-specific structures, and by dealing with a whole range of issues that affect their fundamental correctness and their ability to be developed and reused, Swarm has sought to make the use of agent-based models a legitimate tool of scientific investigation that also meets the practical needs of investigators within a community. Swarm's principal foundation is an object-oriented representation of active agents interacting among themselves and with their environment. To this base layer it adds its own structures to drive, record and portrait the events that occur across this world. The specific contents of any world, however, are up to the experimenter to provide, either by building them from scratch or by tapping previous contributions. This book is notable in assembling a rich array of such contributions, which are significant in their own right, but which can also be mined to extract the reusable elements in their respective areas of finance and economics. It also presents three interesting software additions with tutorials in the form of simple financial and economic applications. A Swarm meta-language closer to a natural language', the use of internet-augmented Swarm for experimental economics, and a Swarm visualbuilder will meet the challenges launched by other agent-based modelling competitors. The Swarm community at large can benefit greatly from the lead that the growing field of computational economics is taking to address its own needs, as represented by this book.

All games are potentially transformative experiences because they engage the player in dynamic action. When repurposed in an educational context, even highly popular casual games played online to pass the time can engage players in a way that deepens learning. Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources examines the learning value of a wide variety of games across multiple disciplines. Organized just like a well-made game, the book is divided into four parts highlighting classroom experiences, community and culture, virtual learning, and interdisciplinary instruction. The author crosses between the high school and college classroom and addresses a range of disciplines, both online and classroom practice, the design of curriculum, and the transformation of assessment practices. In addition to a wealth of practical exercises, resources, and lesson ideas, the book explains how to use a wide and diverse range of games from casual to massively multiplayer online games for self-improvement as well as classroom situations.

This textbook is about systematic problem solving and systematic reasoning using type-driven design. There are two problem solving techniques that are emphasized throughout the book: divide and conquer and iterative refinement. Divide and conquer is the process by which a large problem is broken into two or more smaller problems that are easier to solve and then the solutions for the smaller pieces are combined to create an answer to the problem. Iterative refinement is the process by which a solution to a problem is gradually made better-like the drafts of an essay. Mastering these techniques are essential to becoming a good problem solver and programmer. The book is divided in five parts. Part I focuses on the basics. It starts with how to write expressions and subsequently leads to decision making and functions as the basis for problem solving. Part II then introduces compound data of finite size, while Part III covers compound data of arbitrary size like e.g. lists, intervals, natural numbers, and binary trees. It also introduces structural recursion, a powerful data-processing strategy that uses divide and conquer to process data whose size is not fixed. Next, Part IV delves into abstraction and shows how to eliminate repetitions in solutions to problems. It also introduces generic programming which is abstraction over the type of data processed. This leads to the realization that functions are data and, perhaps more surprising, that data are functions, which in turn naturally leads to object-oriented programming. Part V introduces distributed programming, i.e., using multiple computers to solve a problem. This book promises that by the end of it readers will have designed and implemented a multiplayer video game that they can play with their friends over the internet. To achieve this, however, there is a lot about problem solving and programming that must be learned first. The game is developed using iterative refinement. The reader learns step-by-step about programming and how to apply new knowledge to develop increasingly better versions of the video game. This way, readers practice modern trends that are likely to be common throughout a professional career and beyond.

The spread of the Internet into all areas of business activities has put a particular focus on business models. The digitalization of business processes is the driver of changes in company strategies and management practices alike. This textbook provides a structured and conceptual approach, allowing students and other readers to understand the commonalities and specifics of the respective business models. The book begins with an overview of the business model concept in general by presenting the development of business models, analyzing definitions of business models and discussing the significance of the success of business model management. In turn, Chapter 2 offers insights into and explanations of the business model concept and provides the underlying approaches and ideas behind business models. Building on these foundations, Chapter 3 outlines the fundamental aspects of the digital economy. In the following chapters the book examines various core models in the business to consumer (B2C) context. The chapters follow a 4-C approach that divides the digital B2C businesses into models focusing on content, commerce, context and connection. Each chapter describes one of the four models and provides information on the respective business model types, the value chain, core assets and competencies as well as a case study. Based on the example of Google, Chapter 8 merges these approaches and describes the development of a hybrid digital business model. Chapter 9 is dedicated to business-to-business (B2B) digital business models. It shows how companies focus on business solutions such as online provision of sourcing, sales, supportive collaboration and broker services. Chapter 10 shares insight into the innovation aspect of digital business models, presenting structures and processes of digital business model innovation. The book is rounded out by a comprehensive case study on Google/Alphabet that combines all aspects of digital business models. Conceived as a textbook for students in advanced undergraduate courses, the book will also be useful for professionals and practitioners involved in business model innovation, and applied researchers.

These four volumes present innovative thematic applications implemented using the open source software QGIS. These are applications that use remote sensing over continental surfaces. The volumes detail applications of remote sensing over continental surfaces, with a first one discussing applications for agriculture. A second one presents applications for forest, a third presents applications for the continental hydrology, and finally the last volume details applications for environment and risk issues.

This book extends the conventional two-dimensional (2D) magnet arrangement into 3D pattern for permanent magnet linear machines for the first time, and proposes a novel dual Halbach array. It can not only effectively increase the radial component of magnetic flux density and output force of tubular linear machines, but also significantly reduce the axial flux density, radial force and thus system vibrations and noises. The book is also the first to address the fundamentals and provide a summary of conventional arrays, as well as novel concepts for PM pole design in electric linear machines. It covers theoretical study, numerical simulation, design optimization and experimental works systematically. The design concept and analytical approaches can be implemented to other linear and rotary machines with similar structures. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in electronic engineering and mechanical engineering who wish to learn the core principles, methods, and applications of linear and rotary machines.

The popularity of object-oriented concepts, design, and programming has stimulated the need for a database system that enables a straightforward process to store and retrieve object instances. Object-Oriented Oracle explores object-oriented features and techniques in Oracle DBMS. This book describes comprehensive and fundamental aspects of object-oriented data modeling and implementation in Oracle. It covers the implementation of structural aspects of an object model, including object types, collection types, object referencing, nested tables, and inheritance structures, as well as the behavioral aspects including encapsulated member procedures and functions. Object-Oriented Oracle discusses the complete cycle of database design using object-oriented concepts, implementation of object-relational Oracle, and data manipulations using member procedures/functions and object-relational queries. Object-Oriented Oracle contains a wealth of information, such as case studies in every chapter, as well as exercises at the end of each chapter which helps readers to absorb the topics better, all reasons this book is a necessary collection addition for academics, researchers, educators, and IT professionals everywhere.

Water Resource Modeling and Computational Technologies, Seventh Edition provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the applications that computational techniques have in various sectors of water resource engineering. The book explores applications of recent modeling and computational techniques in various sectors of water resource engineering, including hydroinformatics, irrigation engineering, climate change, hydrologic forecasting, floods, droughts, image processing, GIS, water quality, aquifer mapping, basin scale modeling, computational fluid dynamics, numerical modeling of surges and groundwater flow, river engineering, optimal reservoir operation, multipurpose projects, and water resource management. As such, this is a must read for hydrologists, civil engineers and water resource managers.