This book focuses on the different representations and cryptographic properties of Booleans functions, presents constructions of Boolean functions with some good cryptographic properties. More specifically, Walsh spectrum description of the traditional cryptographic properties of Boolean functions, including linear structure, propagation criterion, nonlinearity, and correlation immunity are presented. Constructions of symmetric Boolean functions and of Boolean permutations with good cryptographic properties are specifically studied. This book is not meant to be comprehensive, but with its own focus on some original research of the authors in the past. To be self content, some basic concepts and properties are introduced. This book can serve as a reference for cryptographic algorithm designers, particularly the designers of stream ciphers and of block ciphers, and for academics with interest in the cryptographic properties of Boolean functions.

This monograph illustrates important notions in security reductions and essential techniques in security reductions for group-based cryptosystems. Using digital signatures and encryption as examples, the authors explain how to program correct security reductions for those cryptographic primitives. Various schemes are selected and re-proven in this book to demonstrate and exemplify correct security reductions. This book is suitable for researchers and graduate students engaged with public-key cryptography.

This book focuses on the development of a theory of info-dynamics to support the theory of info-statics in the general theory of information. It establishes the rational foundations of information dynamics and how these foundations relate to the general socio-natural dynamics from the primary to the derived categories in the universal existence and from the potential to the actual in the ontological space. It also shows how these foundations relate to the general socio-natural dynamics from the potential to the possible to give rise to the possibility space with possibilistic thinking; from the possible to the probable to give rise to possibility space with probabilistic thinking; and from the probable to the actual to give rise to the space of knowledge with paradigms of thought in the epistemological space. The theory is developed to explain the general dynamics through various transformations in quality-quantity space in relation to the nature of information flows at each variety transformation. The theory explains the past-present-future connectivity of the evolving information structure in a manner that illuminates the transformation problem and its solution in the never-ending information production within matter-energy space under socio-natural technologies to connect the theory of info-statics, which in turn presents explanations to the transformation problem and its solution. The theoretical framework is developed with analytical tools based on the principle of opposites, systems of actual-potential polarities, negative-positive dualities under different time-structures with the use of category theory, fuzzy paradigm of thought and game theory in the fuzzy-stochastic cost-benefit space. The rational foundations are enhanced with categorial analytics. The value of the theory of info-dynamics is demonstrated in the explanatory and prescriptive structures of the transformations of varieties and categorial varieties at each point of time and over time from parent-offspring sequences. It constitutes a general explanation of dynamics of information-knowledge production through info-processes and info-processors induced by a socio-natural infinite set of technologies in the construction-destruction space.

This book shows how to model selected communication scenarios using game theory. The book helps researchers specifically dealing with scenarios motivated by the increasing use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G Communications by using game theory to approach the study of such challenging scenarios. The author explains how game theory acts as a mathematical tool that models decision making in terms of strategies and mechanisms that can result in optimal payoffs for a number of interacting entities, offering often antagonistic behaviors. The book explores new technologies in terms of design, development and management from a theoretical perspective, using game theory to analyze strategic situations and demonstrate profitable behaviors of the cooperative entities. The book identifies and explores several significant applications/uses/situations that arise from the vast deployment of the IoT. The presentation of the technological scenarios is followed in each of the first four chapters by a step-by-step theoretical model often followed by equilibrium proof, and numerical simulation results, that are explained in a tutorial-like manner. The four chapters tackle challenging IoT and 5G related issues, including: new security threats that IoT brings, e.g. botnets, ad hoc vehicular networks and the need for trust in vehicular communications, content repetition by offloading traffic onto mobile users, as well as issues due to new wearable devices that enable data collection to become more intrusive.

This volume summarizes the author's work on social information seeking (SIS), and at the same time serves as an introduction to the topic. Sometimes also referred to as social search or social information retrieval, this is a relatively new area of study concerned with the seeking and acquiring of information from social spaces on the Internet. It involves studying situations, motivations, and methods involved in seeking and sharing of information in participatory online social sites, such as Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, and Twitter, as well as building systems for supporting such activities. The first part of the book introduces various foundational concepts, including information seeking, social media, and social networking. As such it provides the necessary basis to then discuss how those aspects could intertwine in different ways to create methods, tools, and opportunities for supporting and leveraging SIS. Next, Part II discusses the social dimension and primarily examines the online question-answering activity. Part III then emphasizes the collaborative aspect of information seeking, and examines what happens when social and collaborative dimensions are considered together. Lastly, Part IV provides a synthesis by consolidating methods, systems, and evaluation techniques related to social and collaborative information seeking. The book is completed by a list of challenges and opportunities for both theoretical and practical SIS work. The book is intended mainly for researchers and graduate students looking for an introduction to this new field, as well as developers and system designers interested in building interactive information retrieval systems or social/community-driven interfaces.

This book discusses the latest progresses and developments on complex systems research and intends to give an exposure to prospective readers about the theoretical and practical aspects of mathematical modelling, numerical simulation and agent-based modelling frameworks. The main purpose of this book is to emphasize a unified approach to complex systems analysis, which goes beyond to examine complicated phenomena of numerous real-life systems; this is done by investigating a huge number of components that interact with each other at different (microscopic and macroscopic) scales; new insights and emergent collective behaviours can evolve from the interactions between individual components and also with their environments. These tools and concepts permit us to better understand the patterns of various real-life systems and help us to comprehend the mechanisms behind which distinct factors shaping some complex systems phenomena being influenced. This book is published in conjunction with the International Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling & Simulation 2019 (CoSMoS 2019): IoT & Big Data Integration. This international event was held at the Universiti Sains Malaysia Main Campus, Penang, Malaysia, from 8 to 11 April 2019. This book appeals to readers interested in complex systems research and other related areas such as mathematical modelling, numerical simulation and agent-based modelling frameworks.

This work is intended to be of interest to counter-terrorism experts and professionals, to academic researchers in information systems, computer science, political science, and public policy, and to graduate students in these areas. The goal of this book is to highlight several aspects of patrolling the Web that were raised and discussed by experts from different disciplines. The book includes academic studies from related technical fields, namely, computer science, and information technology, the strategic point of view as presented by intelligence experts, and finally the practical point of view by experts from related industry describing lessons learned from practical efforts to tackle these problems. This volume is organized into four major parts: definition and analysis of the subject, data-mining techniques for terrorism informatics, other theoretical methods to detect terrorists on the Web, and practical relevant industrial experience on patrolling the Web.

This book deals with timing attacks on cryptographic ciphers. It describes and analyzes various unintended covert timing channels that are formed when ciphers are executed in microprocessors. The book considers modern superscalar microprocessors which are enabled with features such as multi-threaded, pipelined, parallel, speculative, and out-of order execution. Various timing attack algorithms are described and analyzed for both block ciphers as well as public-key ciphers. The interplay between the cipher implementation, the system architecture, and the attack's success is analyzed. Further hardware and software countermeasures are discussed with the aim of illustrating methods to build systems that can protect against these attacks.

This is the second volume of proceedings including selected papers from the International Conference on IT Convergence and Security (ICITCS) 2017, presenting a snapshot of the latest issues encountered in the field. It explores how IT convergence and security issues are core to most current research, industrial and commercial activities and consists of contributions covering topics including machine learning & deep learning, communication and signal processing, computer vision and applications, future network technology, artificial intelligence and robotics. ICITCS 2017 is the latest in a series of highly successful Inter national Conferences on IT Convergence and Security, previously held in Prague, Czech Republic (2016), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2015), Beijing, China (2014), Macau, China (2013), Pyeong Chang, Korea (2012), and Suwon, Korea (2011).

An ontology is a formal description of concepts and relationships that can exist for a community of human and/or machine agents. The notion of ontologies is crucial for the purpose of enabling knowledge sharing and reuse. The Handbook on Ontologies provides a comprehensive overview of the current status and future prospectives of the field of ontologies considering ontology languages, ontology engineering methods, example ontologies, infrastructures and technologies for ontologies, and how to bring this all into ontology-based infrastructures and applications that are among the best of their kind. The field of ontologies has tremendously developed and grown in the five years since the first edition of the "Handbook on Ontologies." Therefore, its revision includes 21 completely new chapters as well as a major re-working of 15 chapters transferred to this second edition.

This book presents the first paradigm of social multimedia computing completely from the user perspective. Different from traditional multimedia and web multimedia computing which are content-centric, social multimedia computing rises under the participatory Web2.0 and is essentially user-centric. The goal of this book is to emphasize the user factor in facilitating effective solutions towards both multimedia content analysis, user modeling and customized user services. Advanced topics like cross-network social multimedia computing are also introduced as extensions and potential directions along this research line.

This book presents the latest research ideas and topics on how to enhance current database systems, improve information storage, refine existing database models, and develop advanced applications. It provides insights into important developments in the field of database and database management. With emphasis on theoretical issues regarding databases and database management, the book describes the capabilities and features of new technologies and methodologies, and addresses the needs of database researchers and practitioners. *Note: This book is part of a new series entitled "Advanced Topics in Database Research." This book is Volume Three within this series (Vol. III, 2004).

This book addresses the mapping of soil-landscape parameters in the geospatial domain. It begins by discussing the fundamental concepts, and then explains how machine learning and geomatics can be applied for more efficient mapping and to improve our understanding and management of 'soil'. The judicious utilization of a piece of land is one of the biggest and most important current challenges, especially in light of the rapid global urbanization, which requires continuous monitoring of resource consumption. The book provides a clear overview of how machine learning can be used to analyze remote sensing data to monitor the key parameters, below, at, and above the surface. It not only offers insights into the approaches, but also allows readers to learn about the challenges and issues associated with the digital mapping of these parameters and to gain a better understanding of the selection of data to represent soil-landscape relationships as well as the complex and interconnected links between soil-landscape parameters under a range of soil and climatic conditions. Lastly, the book sheds light on using the network of satellite-based Earth observations to provide solutions toward smart farming and smart land management.

Move beyond the checklist and fully protect yourself from third-party cybersecurity risk Over the last decade, there have been hundreds of big-name organizations in every sector that have experienced a public breach due to a vendor. While the media tends to focus on high-profile breaches like those that hit Target in 2013 and Equifax in 2017, 2020 has ushered in a huge wave of cybersecurity attacks, a near 800% increase in cyberattack activity as millions of workers shifted to working remotely in the wake of a global pandemic. The 2020 SolarWinds supply-chain attack illustrates that lasting impact of this dramatic increase in cyberattacks. Using a technique known as Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), a sophisticated hacker leveraged APT to steal information from multiple organizations from Microsoft to the Department of Homeland Security not by attacking targets directly, but by attacking a trusted partner or vendor. In addition to exposing third-party risk vulnerabilities for other hackers to exploit, the damage from this one attack alone will continue for years, and there are no signs that cyber breaches are slowing. Cybersecurity and Third-Party Risk delivers proven, active, and predictive risk reduction strategies and tactics designed to keep you and your organization safe. Cybersecurity and IT expert and author Gregory Rasner shows you how to transform third-party risk from an exercise in checklist completion to a proactive and effective process of risk mitigation. Understand the basics of third-party risk management Conduct due diligence on third parties connected to your network Keep your data and sensitive information current and reliable Incorporate third-party data requirements for offshoring, fourth-party hosting, and data security arrangements into your vendor contracts Learn valuable lessons from devasting breaches suffered by other companies like Home Depot, GM, and Equifax The time to talk cybersecurity with your data partners is now. Cybersecurity and Third-Party Risk is a must-read resource for business leaders and security professionals looking for a practical roadmap to avoiding the massive reputational and financial losses that come with third-party security breaches.

Grids, P2P and Services Computing, the 12th volume of the CoreGRID series, is based on the CoreGrid ERCIM Working Group Workshop on Grids, P2P and Service Computing in Conjunction with EuroPar 2009. The workshop will take place August 24th, 2009 in Delft, The Netherlands. Grids, P2P and Services Computing, an edited volume contributed by well-established researchers worldwide, will focus on solving research challenges for Grid and P2P technologies. Topics of interest include: Service Level Agreement, Data & Knowledge Management, Scheduling, Trust and Security, Network Monitoring and more. Grids are a crucial enabling technology for scientific and industrial development. This book also includes new challenges related to service-oriented infrastructures. Grids, P2P and Services Computing is designed for a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners within the Grid community industry. This volume is also suitable for advanced-level students in computer science.

The major subjects of the book cover modeling, analysis and efficient management of information in Internet of Everything (IoE) applications and architectures. As the first book of its kind, it addresses the major new technological developments in the field and will reflect current research trends, as well as industry needs. It comprises of a good balance between theoretical and practical issues, covering case studies, experience and evaluation reports and best practices in utilizing IoE applications. It also provides technical/scientific information about various aspects of IoE technologies, ranging from basic concepts to research grade material, including future directions.

This book discusses the psychological traits associated with drug consumption through the statistical analysis of a new database with information on 1885 respondents and use of 18 drugs. After reviewing published works on the psychological profiles of drug users and describing the data mining and machine learning methods used, it demonstrates that the personality traits (five factor model, impulsivity, and sensation seeking) together with simple demographic data make it possible to predict the risk of consumption of individual drugs with a sensitivity and specificity above 70% for most drugs. It also analyzes the correlations of use of different substances and describes the groups of drugs with correlated use, identifying significant differences in personality profiles for users of different drugs. The book is intended for advanced undergraduates and first-year PhD students, as well as researchers and practitioners. Although no previous knowledge of machine learning, advanced data mining concepts or modern psychology of personality is assumed, familiarity with basic statistics and some experience in the use of probabilities would be helpful. For a more detailed introduction to statistical methods, the book provides recommendations for undergraduate textbooks.

Focuses on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies one's own understanding, communicates it to others, and enables collective intelligence. The authors see mapping software as visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible - and critically, disputable. With 22 chapters from leading researchers and practitioners (5 of them new for this edition), the reader will find the current state-of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on knowledge maps for learning and teaching in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to knowledge maps for information analysis and knowledge management in professional communities, but with many cross-cutting themes: * reflective practitioners documenting the most effective ways to map * conceptual frameworks for evaluating representations * real world case studies showing added value for professionals * more experimental case studies from research and education * visual languages, many of which work on both paper and with software * knowledge cartography software, much of it freely available and open source * visit the companion website for extra resources: books.kmi.open.ac.uk/knowledge-cartography Knowledge Cartography will be of interest to learners, educators, and researchers in all disciplines, as well as policy analysts, scenario planners, knowledge managers and team facilitators. Practitioners will find new perspectives and tools to expand their repertoire, while researchers will find rich enough conceptual grounding for further scholarship.

This book presents state-of-the-art solution methods and applications of stochastic optimal control. It is a collection of extended papers discussed at the traditional Liverpool workshop on controlled stochastic processes with participants from both the east and the west. New problems are formulated, and progresses of ongoing research are reported. Topics covered in this book include theoretical results and numerical methods for Markov and semi-Markov decision processes, optimal stopping of Markov processes, stochastic games, problems with partial information, optimal filtering, robust control, Q-learning, and self-organizing algorithms. Real-life case studies and applications, e.g., queueing systems, forest management, control of water resources, marketing science, and healthcare, are presented. Scientific researchers and postgraduate students interested in stochastic optimal control,- as well as practitioners will find this book appealing and a valuable reference.

SQL Clearly Explained, Third Edition, provides an in-depth introduction to using SQL (Structured Query Language). Readers will learn not only SQL syntax, but also how SQL works. Although the core of the SQL language remains relatively unchanged, the most recent release of the SQL standard (SQL:2008) includes two sets of extensions: 1) support for object-relational databases and 2) support for XML. As a result, the set of standard SQL commands has been greatly extended and this new edition takes that into account. This new edition includes updated tips and tricks to reflect the current concepts of SQL and XML standards; several new chapters covering object-relational and XML extensions; and an ancillary package that includes case studies, a syllabus, exams and more. This book is intended for working SQL programmers, database administrators, database designers, database analysts, and application system developers as well as those who are developing new features for database management systems who want to know about user needs. This would include anyone working with electronic content in the relational database context but also XML. Web services, etc.

This book presents watermarking algorithms derived from signal processing methods such as wavelet transform, matrix decomposition and cosine transform to address the limitations of current technologies. For each algorithm, mathematical foundations are explained with analysis conducted to evaluate performances on robotness and efficiency. Combining theories and practice, it is suitable for information security researchers and industrial engineers.

This book systematically summarizes China Internet development over the past 25 years, highlighting its strong impact on China's economy and society, and discussing the Chinese people's transition from beneficiaries and participants to builders, contributors and joint maintainers of cyberspace development. It describes the development achievements, status and development and trends in China Internet in 2019, systematically summarizes the main lessons learned during development, and analyzes China's strategic planning and policy actions. Further, it discusses topics such as development outcomes, future trends in information infrastructure, network information technology, digital economy, e-government, construction and management of network contents, cyberspace security, the legal construction of cyberspace, and international cyberspace governance. In addition, the book suggests improvements to the index system for China Internet development and offers an overall assessment of cyberspace security and informatization work throughout China in order to comprehensively and accurately demonstrate the level of China Internet development.

This book brings together the diversified areas of contemporary computing frameworks in the field of Computer Science, Engineering and Electronic Science. It focuses on various techniques and applications pertaining to cloud overhead, cloud infrastructure, high speed VLSI circuits, virtual machines, wireless and sensor networks, clustering and extraction of information from images and analysis of e-mail texts. The state-of-the-art methodologies and techniques are addressed in chapters presenting various proposals for enhanced outcomes and performances. The techniques discussed are useful for young researchers, budding engineers and industry professionals for applications in their respective fields.