Recently, nature has stimulated many successful techniques, algorithms, and computational applications allowing conventionally difficult problems to be solved through novel computing systems. ""Nature-Inspired Informatics for Intelligent Applications and Knowledge Discovery: Implications in Business, Science, and Engineering"" provides the latest findings in nature-inspired algorithms and their applications for breakthroughs in a wide range of disciplinary fields. This defining reference collection contains chapters written by leading researchers and well-known academicians within the field, offering readers a valuable and enriched accumulation of knowledge.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2019, held in Turin, Italy, in September 2019. The 56 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 141 submissions. They provide a comprehensive overview of major challenges and recent advances in various domains related to the digital transformation and collaborative networks and their applications with a strong focus on the following areas related to the main theme of the conference: collaborative models, platforms and systems for digital revolution; manufacturing ecosystem and collaboration in Industry 4.0; big data analytics and intelligence; risk, performance, and uncertainty in collaborative networked systems; semantic data/service discovery, retrieval, and composition in a collaborative networked world; trust and sustainability analysis in collaborative networks; value creation and social impact of collaborative networks on the digital revolution; technology development platforms supporting collaborative systems; collective intelligence and collaboration in advanced/emerging applications; and collaborative manufacturing and factories of the future, e-health and care, food and agribusiness, and crisis/disaster management.

The book analyzes the most relevant developments in the relation between contracts and technology, from automatically concluded contracts to today's revolutionary "smart contracts" developed through blockchain, which are beginning to and will increasingly disrupt many economic and social relations. First of all, the author offers a broad analysis of the peculiarities and evolution of the relation between contracts and technology. The main features and elements of electronic contracts are then examined in depth to highlight the specific rules applicable to them in the international comparative legal framework. In turn, the book provides a detailed explanation of the technology, economic and social dynamics, and legal issues concerning blockchain and smart contracts. The analysis focuses on the question of the legal nature of smart contracts, the issues posed by their development and the first legal solutions adopted in some countries. The comparative approach pursued makes it possible to focus attention on the first solutions adopted until now in various systems, with particular regard to the circulation of models and ideas and to the specificities of their local variations, in terms of e.g. applicable law and jurisdiction. In reviewing the characteristics of distributed ledger technologies, and in particular of the blockchain technology on which smart contracts are based, above all the peculiarities of the latter are taken into consideration, especially automatic execution and resistance to tampering, which simultaneously present significant opportunities and complex legal issues. A comprehensive framework is then provided to reconcile smart contracts with comparative contract law, in order to define the scope and specificities of their binding force, legal effectiveness and regulation in various legal systems. Lastly, with specific reference to the elements, pathologies and contractual remedies for smart contracts, the book examines the peculiarities of their application and the main issues that emerge in comparative contract law in order to promote their harmonized use, in keeping with the transnational nature of such a revolutionary tool.

* Joey F. George I was honored to be asked to open the VI Conference of the Italian Chapter of the Association for Information Systems (ItAIS), held in Olbia, on the Costa Smeralda of Sardinia, Italy, in October 2009. Over 90 research papers were presented over two days, and over 120 people attended the conference. Each day, five par- lel sessions featured papers on diverse information systems topics. Session themes included Information and Knowledge Management; Organizational Change and Impact of ICT; IS Quality, Metrics and Impact; E-Justice and Ethics of Information Systems; Information Systems Development and Design Methodo- gies; E-Services in Public and Private Sectors; Innovation Transfer of IT Research Projects; the Strategic Role of Information Systems; Accounting Management and Information Systems; Human Computer Interaction; and Emerging Issues in a Globalized and Interconnected World. The majority of attendees were from Italy, which would be expected for a meeting of the Italian Chapter of AIS. However, as much as 30% of participants came from elsewhere, from other parts of Europe to be sure, but also from as far away as Nigeria, Mexico and Australia. That the conference was so decidedly international provides support for the 2009 con- rence theme, "Achieving Fusion in the Interconnected World. " Amid lively d- cussion and intellectual exchanges, professional networks were extended well beyond the Costa Smeralda and new connections and friendships were made.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented ripples throughout society, bringing many sectors and fields, including education, to a virtual halt or forcing them to change their working style abruptly. Based on technological advancements, e-learning preparedness, and human and financial resources, higher education systems and universities in Eastern and Western countries have responded differently to this crisis. Comparative Research on Educational Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Eastern vs. Western Perspectives presents global research on the response of higher education to the COVID-19 pandemic from both the East and the West. It sheds light on the relevant challenges, strategies, and effectiveness of the policies set in place in response to the pandemic. Covering topics such as international student-related policies, pedagogical adaptation, and student motivation, this premier reference source is an essential resource for policymakers, government officials, faculty of higher education, students and educators of higher education, libraries, researchers, and academicians.

The European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite (EMBOSS) is a high quality package of open source software tools for molecular biology. It includes over 200 applications integrated with a range of popular third party software packages under a consistent and powerful command line interface. The tools are available from a wide range of graphical interfaces, including easy to use web interfaces and powerful workflow software. The EMBOSS Administrator's Guide is the official, definitive and comprehensive guide to EMBOSS installation and maintenance: * Find all the information needed to configure, install and maintain EMBOSS, including recent additions for version 6.2 * Step-by-step instructions with real-world examples - saves readers time and helps them avoid the pitfalls on all the common platforms * In-depth reference to database configuration - learn how to set up and use databases under EMBOSS * Includes EMBOSS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) with answers - quickly find solutions to common problems

Crucial Help for Getting the Most from Today’s Information Systems Technology Deciding what type of information systems your company will need to stay competitive into the twenty-first century is a highly complex and risky exercise. SAP: An Executive’s Comprehensive Guide provides the information you need to assess your options realistically and make the most informed decisions possible. Written by a team of business, financial, and information systems professionals who have extensive experience with SAP system implementations at Fortune 500 companies, this book:

• Explores the strategic role of client/server enterprise computing now and in the next century
• Helps you to evaluate your company’s long-term IS requirements
• Offers an impartial look at SAP R/3 strengths and weaknesses
• Outlines the costs and benefits involved in implementing SAP R/3
• Helps you decide whether SAP R/3 is right for your organization
• Shows you how to make SAP R/3 an integral part of process redesign
• Covers all key technical SAP aspects of concern to IS professionals

Complete, practical coverage of pollution control regulations and water quality modeling

Water Quality Modeling for Wasteload Allocations and TMDLs provides practical guidance for engineers charged with determining the volume and character of wastewater that a body of water can receive without suffering environmental damage. Following the discussion on water pollution control regulations and their relationships to water quality modeling and wasteload allocation for determining the total maximum daily load (TMDL), the first half of the book focuses on quantifying the model coefficients to characterize physical, chemical, and biological processes of a variety of water quality problems.

The remainder of the book guides engineers in the application of EPA-developed models for regulatory use. Presenting numerous case studies and a substantial amount of data, this comprehensive guide:

• Covers practical applications of wasteload allocation
• Provides guidance to develop technical information for obtaining National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits
• Demonstrates the application of STREAM, QUAL2E, WASP, and HAR03

Water Quality Modeling for Wasteload Allocations and TMDLs is an essential resource for state and federal water quality agencies, consulting engineering firms, publicly owned treatment works, environmental biologists and chemists, and public health officials involved with pollution control.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to Industry 4.0 applications, not only introducing implementation aspects but also proposing a conceptual framework with respect to the design principles. In addition, it discusses the effects of Industry 4.0, which are reflected in new business models and workforce transformation. The book then examines the key technological advances that form the pillars of Industry 4.0 and explores their potential technical and economic benefits using examples of real-world applications. The changing dynamics of global production, such as more complex and automated processes, high-level competitiveness and emerging technologies, have paved the way for a new generation of goods, products and services. Moreover, manufacturers are increasingly realizing the value of the data that their processes and products generate. Such trends are transforming manufacturing industry to the next generation, namely Industry 4.0, which is based on the integration of information and communication technologies and industrial technology.The book provides a conceptual framework and roadmap for decision-makers for this transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a very strong reminder that the future economic development of any country is more than ever influenced by its ability to ramp-up digital competitiveness. Consequently, enterprises were pushed to assess and develop the possibilities offered by e-commerce and online marketing tools. In this book, experts outline the prerequisites for such online marketing competitiveness and compare the current level of digital marketing competitiveness in Europe by using publicly available macro and micro-level data. The authors present their analyses and recommendations including interviews with over 125 online marketers and e-commerce specialists and present the lessons from digitalization of over 600 SMEs.

The lack of formal semantics of applications and services to be integrated into business processes makes it difficult for software engineers and developers to interconnect heterogeneous applications. ""Semantic Enterprise Application Integration for Business Processes: Service-Oriented Frameworks"" provides methods that incorporate and streamline processes that allow employees, decision makers, and industry partners to readily access corporate and customer data independent of where it resides. This advanced reference source provides the latest research findings in the design and development of business processes for academicians, researchers, and practitioners.

This book is an important outcome of the Fifth World Internet Conference. It provides a comprehensive review of China's Internet development, especially the new practice and achievement in 2018. And it offers a systematic account of China's experience in Internet development and governance. This year, the book improves China's Internet Development Index System, optimizes the algorithm model, and enhances data collection, to assess and reflect Internet development more comprehensively, objectively and scientifically.

Digital advancements and discoveries are now challenging traditional human resource management services within businesses. The Handbook of Research on E-Transformation and Human Resources Management Technologies: Organizational Outcomes and Challenges provides practical, situated, and unique knowledge on innovative e-HRM technologies that add competitive advantage to organizations. This Handbook of Research expands on theoretical conceptualizations of e-HRM useful to researchers, academicians, and human resource managers.

1) This book presents a comprehensive overview of the exponential increase in the use of technology in business operations. 2) With case studies from India and Sudan, it showcases the use of data analytics and data mining techniques in business operations. 3) This book will be of interest to departments of business analytics and business management in UK.

This volume contains the workshopproceedings of the accompanying workshops of the 14th Financial Cryptograpy and Data Security International Conference 2010, held on Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, January 25-28, 2010. FinancialCryptographyandData Securityis a majorinternationalforumfor research, advanced development, education, exploration, and debate regarding information assurance, with a speci?c focus on commercial contexts. The c- ference covers all aspects of securing transactions and systems and especially encourages original work focusing on both fundamental and applied real-world deployments on all aspects surrounding commerce security. Three workshops were co-located with FC 2010: the Workshop on Real-Life CryptographicProtocolsandStandardization(RLCPS),theWorkshoponEthics in Computer Security Research (WECSR), and the Workshop on Lightweight Cryptography for Resource-Constrained Devices (WLC). Intimate and colorful by tradition, the high-quality program was not the only attraction of FC. In the past, FC conferences have been held in highly research-synergistic locations such as Tobago, Anguilla, Dominica, Key West, Guadelupe, Bermuda, the Grand Cayman, and Cozumel Mexico. 2010 was the ?rst year that the conference was held on European soil, in the Spanish Canary Islands, in Atlantic waters, a few miles across Morocco. Over 100 researchers from more than 20 countries were in attendance.

This volume offers a detailed case study of the internationally acclaimed online programmes in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, UK. It distils over a decade of online teaching experience and student feedback, providing guidance for instructors developing their own online offerings. Today, many universities are actively encouraging their teaching staff towards the development of: * online programmes (programmes to be taught entirely online) and/or * online units (units to be incorporated into "blended" programmes taught partially online and partially face-to-face). Unfortunately, the staff tasked with the development of online learning rarely have access to the expertise that they need to help them utilise their teaching skills to their full potential. Technical assistance may be provided by the university e-learning department, but pedagogical and practical help - the support of colleagues with many years' experience teaching online - is lacking. Written by experts, the book provides an invaluable guide for those wishing - or being compelled - to establish their own online courses within the humanities.

While many other SCM (Software Configuration Management) related books provide focus on what SCM is, this book will guide you through SCM tasks. "Software Configuration Management Implementation Roadmap" provides the reader with the building blocks and concrete steps for implementing SCM. It does this by focusing on several areas: Aligns SCM tasks to the appropriate target levels within the workplace. The three target levels include: the Organization, the Application, and the Project level. This increases the chances of a more effective SCM implementation.

Provides a customizable set of SCM tasks and templates for establishing a unique roadmap for implementing SCM. Within this book, each task includes step-by-step guidance to implement the SCM need.

Provides a focus on distributed and offshore development since development is more distributed than ever before. This book can help you plan for and guide you through the strategies of establishing distributed development infrastructures. The materials in this book may help you significantly reduce the time it takes to plan and prepare for an SCM implementation or an SCM task. It will be particularly useful for Software Engineers especially as a reference guide for junior and mid-level SCM persons (SCM managers, engineers, Release Engineers. Build Engineers, etc.)

Many people believe that Amazon s success is the direct result of a strong user shopping experience. This however is only part of the reason shy Amazon is the number one ecommerce company on the world for almost two decades. The real reason behind Amazon s success is that they have mastered the art of getting other people to market and sell for them. From affiliate partners that drive traffic, to online reviews and ratings where customers tell other customers why they should buy a product, to getting free publicity from shows like Oprah or 60 Minutes, Amazon is the online company to emulate. Amazon s Dirty Little Secrets" will show you how you can accomplish this for your company.

"Amazon s Dirty Little Secret" is getting others to do their marketing and sales for them. This is so powerful that Greg created an acronym using the word POWER+.

P Plenty of traffic

O Offer something for free

W Win their trust

E Engaging experience

R Request an action

+ additional tips & secrets

Anyone engaged in Internet sales and marketing will benefit from the specific examples in this book."

Software and systems quality is playing an increasingly important role in the growth of almost all profit and non-profit organisations. Quality is vital to the success of enterprises in their markets. Most small trade and repair businesses use software systems in their administration and marketing processes. Every doctor's surgery is managing its patients using software. Banking is no longer conceivable without software. Aircraft, trucks and cars use more and more software to handle their increasingly complex technical systems. Innovation, competition and cost pressure are always present in on-going business decisions. The question facing all these organisations is how to achieve the right quality of their software-based systems and products; how to get the required level of quality, a level that the market will reward, a level that mitigates the organisation's risks and a level that the organisation is willing to pay for. Although a number of good practices are in place, there is still room for huge improvements. Thus, let us take a look into the two worlds of "Embedded systems" and "ICT systems" and let us learn from both worlds, from overlaps and individual solutions. The next step for industrialisation in the software industry is required now. Hence, three pillars will be focused in this book: (1) a fundamental notion of right software and systems quality (RiSSQ); (2) portfolio management, quality governance, quality management, and quality engineering as holistic approach over the three layers of an enterprise, i.e. strategic, tactical, and operational layer; and (3) an industrialisation framework for implementing our approach.

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.

Multiplatform e-learning systems are emerging technologies that provides integrated learning content to various accessing devices. ""Multiplatform E-Learning Systems and Technologies: Mobile Devices for Ubiquitous ICT-Based Education"" addresses technical challenges, design frameworks, and development experiences of the future that integrate multiple mobile devices into a single multiplatform e-learning systems. With expert international contributions, this collection benefits researchers, academicians, and practioners interested in this growing field.

Learn How To Convert Web Data Into Web Knowledge

This text demonstrates how to extract knowledge by finding meaningful connections among data spread throughout the Web. Readers learn methods and algorithms from the fields of information retrieval, machine learning, and data mining which, when combined, provide a solid framework for mining the Web. The authors walk readers through the algorithms with the aid of examples and exercises.

This text is divided into three parts:

Part One, Web Structure, presents basic concepts and techniques for extracting information from the Web. Readers learn how to collect and index Web documents as well as search and rank Web pages according to their textual content and hyperlink structure.

Part Two, Web Content Management, offers two approaches, clustering and classification, for organizing Web content. For both approaches, the authors set forth specific algorithms that enable readers to convert Web data into knowledge.

Part Three, Web Usage Mining, demonstrates the application of data mining methods to uncover meaningful patterns of Internet usage.

Methods and algorithms are illustrated by simple examples. More than 100 exercises help readers assess their grasp of the material. Further, thirty-four hands-on analysis problems ask readers to use their new data mining expertise to solve real problems, working with large data sets. All the data sets needed for the examples, exercises, and analysis problems are available on the companion Web site.

The extensive use of examples, along with the opportunity to test and apply data mining skills, makes this text ideal for graduate and upper-level undergraduates in computer science andengineering. Web designers and researchers will find that this text gives them a new set of tools to further mine the Web for knowledge and move well beyond the capabilities of standard search engines.

This book provides specialists and executives with a clear, yet practical set of recommendations to meet the challenges of digital transformation and ensure long-term success as a leader in a primarily digital business world. The authors describe the fundamental principles of digitization and its economic opportunities and risks, integrating them into a framework of classic and new management methods. The book also explores how increasing digitization - not only of communication, but of complete value chains - has led to a need to establish a digital business leadership. Digitization is changing people and markets: it causes the upheaval of entire industries, creates new digital-centric companies, and forces established companies to cope with the transformation activities associated with these digitization processes. New approaches and methods have to be learned, tried and tested patterns of thinking have to be explored, and last but not least, innovation activities have to be understood as continuous necessities. At the same time, digital business offers considerable opportunities for renewing competitive advantages, improving existing process structures and realigning products, services and business models.

The increasing importance of industrial services and rapid digitalization towards smart and remote services pose opportunities as well as challenges to the manufacturing sector. This book provides a holistic understanding of industrial service management and guides companies into building capabilities and management practices for smart and remote services. By combining insights from research and practice, it offers a unique perspective on the core and enabling activities of manufacturing companies for growth in the service business. In essence, the first part covers action-based research findings regarding service strategy, organizational design, service innovation, service sales, services operations, and customer relationship management together with insights into value networks. The second part introduces outstanding practices from leading manufacturing companies in industrial and smart services. The book concludes with a summary of key messages and recommendations to navigate the landscape of industrial and smart service management successfully.