Emerging technologies continue to affect a variety of industries, making processes more effective and efficient. However, they also impact society by promoting opportunities to encourage social change and socioeconomic advancement. Blockchain is one that is already influencing third world countries and disrupting the globe. Blockchain Technology for Global Social Change is an essential research publication that provides insight into advancements being made in blockchain and some potential applications of the technology that can improve the lives of individuals in emerging markets. This publication covers a range of topics such as digital government, health systems, and urbanization and is ideal for policymakers, academicians, researchers, sociologists, government officials, economists, and financial experts seeking current and relevant research on evolving blockchain technologies.

The optimization of traffic management operations has become a considerable challenge in today's global scope due to the significant increase in the number of vehicles, traffic congestions, and automobile accidents. Fortunately, there has been substantial progress in the application of intelligent computing devices to transportation processes. Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are a specific practice that merges the connectivity of wireless technologies with smart vehicles. Despite its relevance, empirical research is lacking on the developments being made in VANETs and how certain intelligent technologies are being applied within transportation systems. IoT and Cloud Computing Advancements in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of intelligent transportation systems and analyzing the modern techniques that are being applied to smart vehicles through cloud technology. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as health monitoring, node localization, and fault tolerance, this book is ideally designed for network designers, developers, analysists, IT specialists, computing professionals, researchers, academics, and post-graduate students seeking current research on emerging computing concepts and developments in vehicular ad-hoc networks.

Diversity in user queries makes it challenging for search engines to effectively return a set of relevant results. Both user intentions to search the web and types of queries are vastly varied; consequently, horizontal and vertical search engines are developed to answer user queries more efficiently. However, these search engines present a variety of problems in web searching. Result Page Generation for Web Searching: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential reference publication that focuses on taking advantages from text and web mining in order to address the issues of recommendation and visualization in web searching. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as navigational searching, resource identification, and ambiguous queries, this book is ideally designed for computer engineers, web designers, programmers, academicians, researchers, and students.

Vehicular traffic congestion and accidents remain universal issues in today's world. Due to the continued growth in the use of vehicles, optimizing traffic management operations is an immense challenge. To reduce the number of traffic accidents, improve the performance of transportation systems, enhance road safety, and protect the environment, vehicular ad-hoc networks have been introduced. Current developments in wireless communication, computing paradigms, big data, and cloud computing enable the enhancement of these networks, equipped with wireless communication capabilities and high-performance processing tools. Cloud-Based Big Data Analytics in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on cloud and data analytic applications in intelligent transportation systems. While highlighting topics such as location routing, accident detection, and data warehousing, this publication addresses future challenges in vehicular ad-hoc networks and presents viable solutions. This book is ideally designed for researchers, computer scientists, engineers, automobile industry professionals, IT practitioners, academicians, and students seeking current research on cloud computing models in vehicular networks.

Translation and communication between cultures can sometimes be a difficult process. Image-based assessments can offer a way for large populations to be tested on different subjects without having to create multiple testing programs. Cross-Cultural Analysis of Image-Based Assessments: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an innovative resource that offers insight into the application of visual assessments across a global and intercultural context. Highlighting applicable topics which include visual literacy, psychological assessments, assessment development, and equivalency measurements, this publication is ideal for psychologists, therapists, and researchers who would like to stay current on the most efficient way to test multi-cultural populations in various fields of knowledge.

In today's digital world, the huge amount of data being generated is unstructured, messy, and chaotic in nature. Dealing with such data, and attempting to unfold the meaningful information, can be a challenging task. Feature engineering is a process to transform such data into a suitable form that better assists with interpretation and visualization. Through this method, the transformed data is more transparent to the machine learning models, which in turn causes better prediction and analysis of results. Data science is crucial for the data scientist to assess the trade-offs of their decisions regarding the effectiveness of the machine learning model implemented. Investigating the demand in this area today and in the future is a necessity. The Handbook of Research on Automated Feature Engineering and Advanced Applications in Data Science provides an in-depth analysis on both the theoretical and the latest empirical research findings on how features can be extracted and transformed from raw data. The chapters will introduce feature engineering and the recent concepts, methods, and applications with the use of various data types, as well as examine the latest machine learning applications on the data. While highlighting topics such as detection, tracking, selection techniques, and prediction models using data science, this book is ideally intended for research scholars, big data scientists, project developers, data analysts, and computer scientists along with practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in feature engineering and its impact on data.

Research in the domains of learning analytics and educational data mining has prototyped an approach where methodologies from data science and machine learning are used to gain insights into the learning process by using large amounts of data. As many training and academic institutions are maturing in their data-driven decision making, useful, scalable, and interesting trends are emerging. Organizations can benefit from sharing information on those efforts. Applying Data Science and Learning Analytics Throughout a Learner's Lifespan examines novel and emerging applications of data science and sister disciplines for gaining insights from data to inform interventions into learners' journeys and interactions with academic institutions. Data is collected at various times and places throughout a learner's lifecycle, and the learners and the institution should benefit from the insights and knowledge gained from this data. Covering topics such as learning analytics dashboards, text network analysis, and employment recruitment, this book is an indispensable resource for educators, computer scientists, faculty of higher education, government officials, educational administration, students of higher education, pre-service teachers, business professionals, researchers, and academicians.

Information systems development underwent many changes as systems transitioned onto web-based forums. Complemented by advancements in security and technology, internet-based systems have become an information mainstay. The Handbook of Research on Contemporary Perspectives on Web-Based Systems is a critical scholarly resource that examines relevant theoretical frameworks, current practice guidelines, industry standards, and the latest empirical research findings in web-based systems. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as data integration, mobile applications, and semantic web, this publication is geared toward computer engineers, IT specialists, software designers, professionals, researchers, and upper-level students seeking current and relevant research on the prevalence of these systems and advancements made to them.

Multimedia represents information in novel and varied formats. One of the most prevalent examples of continuous media is video. Extracting underlying data from these videos can be an arduous task. From video indexing, surveillance, and mining, complex computational applications are required to process this data. Intelligent Analysis of Multimedia Information is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the implementation of innovative techniques to a broad spectrum of multimedia applications by presenting emerging methods in continuous media processing and manipulation. This book offers a fresh perspective for students and researchers of information technology, media professionals, and programmers.

Recent innovations have created significant developments in data storage and management. These new technologies now allow for greater security in databases and other applications. Decentralized Computing Using Block Chain Technologies and Smart Contracts: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a concise and informative source of academic research on the latest developments in block chain innovation and their application in contractual agreements. Highlighting pivotal discussions on topics such as cryptography, programming techniques, and decentralized computing, this book is an ideal publication for researchers, academics, professionals, students, and practitioners seeking content on utilizing block chains with smart contracts.

For any organization, analysis of performance and effectiveness through available data allows for informed decision making. Data envelopment analysis, or DEA, is a popular, effective method that can be used to measure productive efficiency in operations management assessment. Data Envelopment Analysis and Effective Performance Assessment addresses the myriad of practical uses and innovative developments of DEA. Emphasizing the importance of analyzing productivity by measuring inputs, goals, economic growth, and performance, this book covers a wide breadth of innovative knowledge. This book is essential reading for managers, business professionals, students of business and ICT, and computer engineers.

The internet of things (IoT) is quickly growing into a large industry with a huge economic impact expected in the near future. However, the users' needs go beyond the existing web-like services, which do not provide satisfactory intelligence levels. Ambient intelligence services in IoT environments is an emerging research area that can change the way that technology and services are perceived by the users. Ambient Intelligence Services in IoT Environments: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a unique source that systemizes recent trends and advances for service development with such key technological enablers of modern ICT as ambient intelligence, IoT, web of things, and cyber-physical systems. The considered concepts and models are presented using a smart spaces approach with a particular focus on the Smart-M3 platform, which is now shaping into an open source technology for creating ontology-based smart spaces and is shifting towards the development of web of things applications and socio-cyber-physical systems. Containing coverage on a broad range of topics such as fog computing, smart environments, and virtual reality, multitudes of researchers, students, academicians, and professionals will benefit from this timely reference.

Information Security and Ethics: Social and Organizational Issues brings together examples of the latest research from a number of international scholars addressing a wide range of issues significant to this important and growing field of study. These issues are relevant to the wider society, as well as to the individual, citizen, educator, student and industry professional. With individual chapters focusing on areas including web accessibility; the digital divide; youth protection and surveillance; Information security; education; ethics in the Information professions and Internet voting; this book provides an invaluable resource for students, scholars and professionals currently working in information Technology related areas.

Digital libraries have been established worldwide to make information more readily available, and this innovation has changed the way information seekers interact with the data they are collecting. Faced with decentralized, heterogeneous sources, these users must be familiarized with high-level search activities in order to sift through large amounts of data. Information Seeking Behavior and Challenges in Digital Libraries addresses the problems of usability and search optimization in digital libraries. With topics addressing all aspects of information seeking activity, the research found in this book provides insight into library user experiences and human-computer interaction when searching online databases of all types. This book addresses the challenges faced by professionals in information management, librarians, developers, students of library science, and policy makers.

Each Student Book and ActiveBook have has clearly laid out pages with a range of supportive features to aid learning and teaching: Getting to know your unit sections ensure learners understand the grading criteria and unit requirements. Getting ready for Assessment sections focus on preparation for external assessment with guidance for learners on what to expect. Hints and tips will help them prepare for assessment and sample answers are provided for a range of question types including, short and long answer questions, all with a supporting commentary. Learners can also prepare for internal assessment using this feature. A case study of a learner completing the internal assessment for that unit covering 'How I got started', 'How I brought it all together' and 'What I got from the experience'. Pause Point feature provide opportunities for learners to self-evaluate their learning at regular intervals. Each Pause Point point feature gives learners a Hint or Extend option to either revisit and reinforce the topic or to encourage independent research or study skills. Case Study and Theory into Practice features enable development of problem-solving skills and place the theory into real life situations learners could encounter. Assessment Activity/Practice provide scaffolded assessment practice activities that help prepare learners for assessment. Within each assessment practice activity, a Plan, Do and Review section supports learners' formative assessment by making sure they fully understand what they are being asked to do, what their goals are and how to evaluate the task and consider how they could improve. Dedicated Think Future pages provide case studies from the industry, with a focus on aspects of skills development that can be put into practice in a real work environment and further study.

Relational databases have been predominant for many years and are used throughout various industries. The current system faces challenges related to size and variety of data thus the NoSQL databases emerged. By joining these two database models, there is room for crucial developments in the field of computer science. Bridging Relational and NoSQL Databases is an innovative source of academic content on the convergence process between databases and describes key features of the next database generation. Featuring coverage on a wide variety of topics and perspectives such as BASE approach, CAP theorem, and hybrid and native solutions, this publication is ideally designed for professionals and researchers interested in the features and collaboration of relational and NoSQL databases.

The world is witnessing the growth of a global movement facilitated by technology and social media. Fueled by information, this movement contains enormous potential to create more accountable, efficient, responsive, and effective governments and businesses, as well as spurring economic growth. Big Data Governance and Perspectives in Knowledge Management is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of applying robust processes around data, and aligning organizations and skillsets around those processes. Highlighting a range of topics including data analytics, prediction analysis, and software development, this book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, information science professionals, software developers, computer engineers, graduate-level computer science students, policymakers, and managers seeking current research on the convergence of big data and information governance as two major trends in information management.

The effective application of knowledge management principles has proven to be beneficial for modern organizations. When utilized in the academic community, these frameworks can enhance the value and quality of research initiatives. Enhancing Academic Research With Knowledge Management Principles is a pivotal reference source for the latest research on implementing theoretical frameworks of information management in the context of academia and universities. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as data mining, organizational and academic culture, this publication is an ideal resource for researchers, academics, practitioners, professionals, and students.

"Introduction to Data Mining" presents fundamental concepts and algorithms for those learning data mining for the first time. Each concept is explored thoroughly and supported with numerous examples. The text requires only a modest background in mathematics. Each major topic is organized into two chapters, beginning with basic concepts that provide necessary background for understanding each data mining technique, followed by more advanced concepts and algorithms.