The book provides a comprehensive approach to configuration management from a variety of product development perspectives, including embedded and IT. It provides authoritative advice on how to extend products for a variety of markets due to configuration options. The book also describes the importance of configuration management to other parts of the organization. It supplies an overview of configuration management and its process elements to provide readers with a contextual understanding of the theory, practice, and application of CM. The book illustrates the interplay of configuration and data management with all enterprise resources during each phase of a product lifecycle.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Context-Aware Systems and Applications, ICCASA 2016, held in Thu Dau Mot, Vietnam, in November 2016. The 22 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 35 submissions and cover a wide spectrum in the area of Context-Aware-Systems (CAS). CAS is characterized by its self- facets such as self-organization, self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization, self-protection, where context awareness used to dynamically control computing and networking functions. The overall goal of CAS is to realize nature-inspired autonomic systems that can manage themselves without direct human interventions.

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), combined with greater heterogeneity not only online in cloud computing architectures but across the cloud-to-edge continuum, is introducing new challenges for managing applications and infrastructure across this continuum. The scale and complexity is simply so complex that it is no longer realistic for IT teams to manually foresee the potential issues and manage the dynamism and dependencies across an increasing inter-dependent chain of service provision. This Open Access Pivot explores these challenges and offers a solution for the intelligent and reliable management of physical infrastructure and the optimal placement of applications for the provision of services on distributed clouds. This book provides a conceptual reference model for reliable capacity provisioning for distributed clouds and discusses how data analytics and machine learning, application and infrastructure optimization, and simulation can deliver quality of service requirements cost-efficiently in this complex feature space. These are illustrated through a series of case studies in cloud computing, telecommunications, big data analytics, and smart cities.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Symposium on Security in Computing and Communications, SSCC 2015, held in Kochi, India, in August 2015. The 36 revised full papers presented together with 13 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 157 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on security in cloud computing; authentication and access control systems; cryptography and steganography; system and network security; application security.

Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, Steve McConnell's original CODE COMPLETE has been helping developers write better software for more than a decade. Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices--and hundreds of new code samples--illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking--and help you build the highest quality code. Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you: Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity Reap the benefits of collaborative development Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors Exploit opportunities to refactor--or evolve--code, and do it safely Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project Debug problems quickly and effectively Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project

This book takes an in-depth look at consumer behavior in the context of multichannel commerce and explores how the convergence of physical and electronic channels influences consumer decision-making in a multichannel environment. In this regard, it goes far beyond explaining choices between online and offline sales channels, instead providing insights into how the interplay between different channel types is valued by different consumer types and for different products. The book extends previous conceptualizations of multichannel commerce to reflect and incorporate recent technological advances. The results provide valuable guidelines on how, why and when multichannel integration services can be exploited by classical retailers, helping them to compete with their purely online competitors on the internet.

Georg Fassott untersucht das internationale Konsumentenverhalten im Internet. Hierzu nutzt er Erkenntnisse aus dem Technologie-Akzeptanz-Modell und der Flow-Forschung. Anhand einer Internet- und Telefonbefragung in Deutschland uberpruft er sein Modell empirisch. Als Auswertungsverfahren wahlt er den Partial-Least-Squares-Strukturvergleichsansatz (PLS). Abschliessend erarbeitet er Handlungsempfehlungen fur Unternehmen, die uber das Internet internationale Kunden gewinnen und zufrieden stellen wollen.
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This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Web and Internet Economics, WINE 2015, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in December 2015. The 30 regular papers presented together with 8 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 142 submissions and cover results on incentives and computation in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and microeconomics.

Information and communication technology, in particular artificial intelligence, can be used to support economy and commerce using digital means. This book is about agents and multi-agent distributed systems applied to digital economy and e-commerce to meet, improve, and overcome challenges in the digital economy and e-commerce sphere. Agent and multi-agent solutions are applied in implementing real-life, exciting developments associated with the need to eliminate problems of distributed systems. The book presents solutions for both technology and applications, illustrating the possible uses of agents in the enterprise domain, covering design and analytic methods, needed to provide a solid foundation required for practical systems. More specifically, the book provides solutions for the digital economy, e-sourcing clusters in network economy, and knowledge exchange between agents applicable to online trading agents, and security solutions to both digital economy and e-commerce. Furthermore, it offers solutions for e-commerce, such as, mapping and alignment of ontologies for business, negotiation, automated auctions, recommender systems to support traders in business activities, and game simulations.

Data Mining is the process of posing queries and extracting useful information, patterns and trends previously unknown from large quantities of data [Thu, 00]. It is the process where intelligent tools are applied in order to extract data patterns [JM, 01]. This encompasses a number of different technical approaches, such as cluster analysis, learning classification and association rules, and finding dependencies. Agents are defined as software entities that perform some set of tasks on behalf of users with some degree of autonomy. This research work deals about developing a automated data mining system which encompasses the familiar data mining algorithms using intelligent agents in object oriented databases and proposing a framework. Because the data mining system uses the intelligent agents, a new user will be able to interact with the data mining system without much data mining technical knowledge. This system will automatically select the appropriate data mining technique and select the necessary field needed from the database at the appropriate time without expecting the users to specify the specific technique and the parameters. Also a new framework is proposed for incorporating intelligent agents with automated data mining. One of the major goals in developing this system is to give the control to the computer for learning automatically by using intelligent agents.

* 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.

Uncertainty theory is a branch of mathematics based on normality, monotonicity, self-duality, countable subadditivity, and product measure axioms. Uncertainty is any concept that satisfies the axioms of uncertainty theory. Thus uncertainty is neither randomness nor fuzziness. It is also known from some surveys that a lot of phenomena do behave like uncertainty. How do we model uncertainty? How do we use uncertainty theory? In order to answer these questions, this book provides a self-contained, comprehensive and up-to-date presentation of uncertainty theory, including uncertain programming, uncertain risk analysis, uncertain reliability analysis, uncertain process, uncertain calculus, uncertain differential equation, uncertain logic, uncertain entailment, and uncertain inference. Mathematicians, researchers, engineers, designers, and students in the field of mathematics, information science, operations research, system science, industrial engineering, computer science, artificial intelligence, finance, control, and management science will find this work a stimulating and useful reference.

This book is nothing less than a complete and comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art of terrorism informatics. It covers the application of advanced methodologies and information fusion and analysis. It also lays out techniques to acquire, integrate, process, analyze, and manage the diversity of terrorism-related information for international and homeland security-related applications. The book details three major areas of terrorism research: prevention, detection, and established governmental responses to terrorism. It systematically examines the current and ongoing research, including recent case studies and application of terrorism informatics techniques. The coverage then presents the critical and relevant social/technical areas to terrorism research including social, privacy, data confidentiality, and legal challenges.

A new model of business has emerged within the Digital-Economy called Internetworked Enterprise (IE); it's a model that posits networks, communities of individuals and refusal of a centralized mindset as the core elements of the new frame of reference. Internetworked Enterprises are called by some scholars 'Extended' Enterprises, which use digital network to co-operate and compete with other e-business community partners by exchanging knowledge and information across trans-national borders. Evolving Towards the Internetworked Enterprise: Technological and Organizational Perspectives is an edited volume based on a three year research project financed by the Italian Ministry of Research and Education. Researchers for this project are located at Polytechnic of Milan, University of Milan, University of Chieti, Engineering S.P.A and ISUFI-University of Salento. This book presents an overview of IE business methodologies, models, and an interpretative framework analyzing the sector and organizational contingencies that influence the digitalization of organizational processes in networks of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprise). A set of case studies that provide empirical evidence on the IE phenomenon is included as well. This book is designed for advanced-level students in computer science and business management concentrating on e-business, digital computing, information technology, economics of technology and innovation management as a reference or secondary text book. Practitioners working in these fields as corporate strategic planners and consultants will also find this book a valuable asset.

This volume contains contributions from the 11th International Conference on Management Science (CMS 2014), held at Lisbon, Portugal, on May 29-31, 2014. Its contents reflect the wide scope of Management Science, covering different theoretical aspects for a quite diverse set of applications. Computational Management Science provides a unique perspective in relevant decision-making processes by focusing on all its computational aspects. These include computational economics, finance and statistics; energy; scheduling; supply chains; design, analysis and applications of optimization algorithms; deterministic, dynamic, stochastic, robust and combinatorial optimization models; solution algorithms, learning and forecasting such as neural networks and genetic algorithms; models and tools of knowledge acquisition, such as data mining; and all other topics in management science with the emphasis on computational paradigms.

Details the key impacts and risk assessment within the context of technology-enabled information (TEI). This volume is designed as a secondary text for graduate students, and also for a professional audience of researchers and practitioners in industry.

To compete in today's volatile market with rapidly changing consumer tastes and erce competition, companies in the manufacturing and service industries are - ploying new mechanisms to increase sales, market shares, and pro ts. As an - fective mechanism to segment a market comprising of consumers with different needs, preferences, and willingness-to-pay, many rms have used product (or s- vice) variety with different price points to serve different segments of the market, see Ho (1998). Ideally, the price of each of these products (or services) targets a particular segment of customers. For example, airlines often use different terms of sales (refundable/non-refundable, upgradable/non-upgradable, direct/connecting ight, etc. ) to sell economy class tickets at different prices. Likewise, retailers - ten sell the same product at different prices in different channels (company's own web site, dealers' web sites, or company's physical stores) or at different times (- fore, during, and after the selling season), see Talluri and van Ryzin (2005). Ample academic literature in Operations Management and other areas considered these strategies. However, as consumers become more knowledgeable about the product, pricing, organizational and operational policies that the companies deploy for pr- ucts and services, their purchasing begins to change dramatically. In the academic Operations Management literature, consumer demand is often assumedtobe exogenous so that demand functions are usually modeled as well de- ned and exogenously speci ed functions of price and/or other product attributes such as quality.

Legal Programming: Designing Legally Compliant RFID and Software Agent Architectures for Retail Processes and Beyond provides a process-oriented discussion of the legal concerns presented by agent-based technologies, processes and programming. It offers a general outline of the potential legal difficulties that could arise in relation to them, focusing on the programming of negotiation and contracting processes in a privacy, consumer and commercial context. The authors will elucidate how it is possible to create form of legal framework and design methodology for transaction agents, applicable in any environment and not just in a specific proprietary framework, that provides the right level of compliance and trust. Key elements considered include the design and programming of legally compliant methods, the determination of rights in respect of objects and variables, and ontologies and programming frameworks for agent interactions. Examples are used to illustrate the points made and provide a practical perspective.

A primer on the currency alternative that's changing the world Bitcoin can be a bit puzzling to the uninitiated. Ledger? Blockchain? Mining? These cryptocurrency concepts aren't going away, and there are tremendous opportunities for those with some know-how to get onboard with the crypto culture. Bitcoin For Dummies helps you get un-puzzled, learn the Bitcoin basics, and discover the possibilities in the new world of digital currencies. With this 100% new edition, you can step into the fascinating culture of cryptocurrency and learn how to use Bitcoin as a currency or an investment vehicle. A little bit of knowledge will go a long way, and you'll be ready to sail smoothly ahead as the crypto tsunami advances. Demystify Bitcoin and learn how to buy and sell cryptocurrency Create a digital wallet and make everyday purchases using Bitcoin Discover the ins and outs of investing in Bitcoin and other up-and-coming cryptocurrencies Participate in the cutting-edge culture of crypto Bitcoin For Dummies is great for beginning Bitcoin users and investors who need to know the basics about getting started with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Symposium on Security in Computing and Communications, SSCC 2014, held in Delhi, India, in September 2013. The 36 revised full papers presented together with 12 work-in-progress papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 132 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on security and privacy in networked systems; authentication and access control systems; encryption and cryptography; system and network security; work-in-progress.

The book examines a wide range of issues that characterize the current IT based innovation trends in organisations. It contains a collection of research papers focusing on themes of growing interest in the field of Information System, Organization Studies, and Management. The book offers a multi-disciplinary view on Information Systems aiming to disseminate academic knowledge. It might be particularly relevant to IT practitioners such as information systems managers, business managers and IT consultants. The volume is divided into XIV sections, each one focusing on a specific theme. A preface written by Joey George, president of the Association for Information Systems opens the text. The content of each section is based on a selection of the best papers (original double blind peer reviewed contributions) presented at the annual conference of the Italian chapter of AIS, which has been held in Naples, Italy, on October 2010.

This book discusses three levels of e-government and national strategies to reach a citizen-centric participatory e-government, and examines how disruptive technologies help shape the future of e-government. The authors examine how e-government can facilitate a symbiotic relationship between the government and its citizens. ICTs aid this relationship and promote transparencies so that citizens can place greater trust in the activities of their government. If a government can manage resources more effectively by better understanding the needs of its citizens, it can create a sustainable environment for citizens. Having a national strategy on ICT in government and e-government can significantly reduce government waste, corruption, and inefficiency. Businesses, CIOs and CTOs in the public sector interested in meeting sustainability requirements will find this book useful.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 2014 Multidisciplinary International Social Networks Research, MISNC 2014, held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in September 2014. The 37 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on electronic commerce, e-business management, and social networks; social networks issues on sociology, politics and statistics; information technology for social networks analysis and mining; social networks for global eHealth and bio-medics; security, open data, e-learning and other related topics; intelligent data analysis and its applications.

This book contains the thoroughly refereed and revised best papers from the 9th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, WEBIST 2013, held in Aachen, Germany, in May 2013, organized by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication (INSTICC), and co-organized by the RWTH Aachen University. The 15 papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 143 submissions. The papers were selected from those with the best reviews also taking into account the quality of their presentation at the conference. The papers are grouped into parts on Internet technology, Web interfaces and applications, society, e-business and e-government, Web intelligence, and mobile information systems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Context-Aware Systems and Applications, ICCASA 2013, held in Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam in November 2013. The 36 revised full papers presented were carefully selected and reviewed from over 100 submissions and cover a wide spectrum of issues in the area of context-aware systems (CAS) and context-based recommendation systems.