The Social Web (including services such as MySpace, Flickr, last.fm, and WordPress) has captured the attention of millions of users as well as billions of dollars in investment and acquisition. Social websites, evolving around the connections between people and their objects of interest, are encountering boundaries in the areas of information integration, dissemination, reuse, portability, searchability, automation and demanding tasks like querying. The Semantic Web is an ideal platform for interlinking and performing operations on diverse person- and object-related data available from the Social Web, and has produced a variety of approaches to overcome the boundaries being experienced in Social Web application areas.

After a short overview of both the Social Web and the Semantic Web, Breslin et al. describe some popular social media and social networking applications, list their strengths and limitations, and describe some applications of Semantic Web technology to address their current shortcomings by enhancing them with semantics. Across these social websites, they demonstrate a twofold approach for interconnecting the islands that are social websites with semantic technologies, and for powering semantic applications with rich community-created content. They conclude with observations on how the application of Semantic Web technologies to the Social Web is leading towards the "Social Semantic Web" (sometimes also called "Web 3.0"), forming a network of interlinked and semantically-rich content and knowledge.

The book is intended for computer science professionals, researchers, and graduates interested in understanding the technologies and research issues involved in applying Semantic Web technologies to social software. Practitioners and developers interested in applications such as blogs, social networks or wikis will also learn about methods for increasing the levels of automation in these forms of Web communication.

This visionary book presents an interdisciplinary and cogent approach to the issue of Internet governance and control. By examining five critical areas in which the tension between freedom and control is most palpable--fair competition and open access, free expression, intellectual property, privacy rights, and security--Spinello guides the reader on a tour of the emerging body of law and public policy that has attempted to control the anarchy of cyberspace. In so doing, he defends the credo of Internet self-regulation, asserting that the same powerful and flexible architectures that created the Internet as we know it today can be relied upon to aid the private sector in arriving at a workable, decentralized regulatory regime. Except in certain circumstances that require government involvement, self-regulation is not only viable but is a highly preferred alternative to the forced uniformity that centralized structures tend to impose.

Beginning with an exploration of the Internet's most important values, including universality, free expression, and open access, as well as its promise as a democratizing force, Spinello considers how we can most effectively preserve those values and fulfill that promise while curtailing the social harms that vex Internet users. How do we arrive at the right mixture of technology and policy so that the Internet does not lose its promise as a liberating technology? In examining this question, Spinello evaluates such architectures of control as filters and rights management protocols, which attempt to keep out unwanted information and protect intellectual property, respectively. He explores how these and other technologies can be designed and used responsibly so that online social order can be sustained with a minimal amount of government intervention.

This book focuses on the modeling and management of spatial data in distributed systems. The authors have structured the contributions from internationally renowned researchers into four parts. The book offers researchers an excellent overview of the state-of-the-art in modeling and management of spatial data in distributed environments, while it may also be the basis of specialized courses on Web-based geographical information systems.

This book provides an up-to-date study of technical, pedagogical and managerial issues in Web-based learning. The successful application of Web-based learning provides enhancements in workforce performance, helps to lower costs, and encourages innovation for Web-based and distance learning.It presents a selection of 20 refereed papers given at the First International Conference on Web-Based Learning from over 70 submissions by academic researchers and industry developers from 19 different countries. It provides an excellent resource for students, researchers and practitioners involved in Web-based learning.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:* Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)* Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (R) (ISSHP (R) / ISI Proceedings)* Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)

The use of geospatial technologies has become ubiquitous since the leading Internet vendors delivered a number of popular map websites. This book covers a wide spectrum of techniques, model methodologies and theories on development and applications of GIS relative to the internet. It includes coverage of business process services, and integration of GIS into global enterprise information systems and service architectures. The world's experts in this emerging field present examples and case studies for location-based services, coastal restoration, urban planning, battlefield planning, rehearsal environmental analysis and assessment.

The importance of knowledge and information technology management has been emphasized both by researchers and practitioners in order for companies to compete in the global market. Now such technologies have become crucial in a sense that there is a need to understand the business and operations strategies, as well as how the development of IT would contribute to knowledge management and therefore increase competitiveness. Knowledge and Information Technology Management: Human and Social Perspectives strives to explore the human resource and social dimensions of knowledge and IT management, to discuss the opportunities and major issues related to the management of people along the supply chain in Internet marketing, and to provide an understanding of how the human resource and the IT management should complement each other for improved communication and competitiveness.

Data warehouses have captured the attention of practitioners and researchers alike. But the design and optimization of data warehouses remains an art rather than a science. This book presents the first comparative review of the state of the art and best current practice of data warehouses. It covers source and data integration, multidimensional aggregation, query optimization, update propagation, metadata management, quality assessment, and design optimization. Also, based on results of the European Data Warehouse Quality project, it offers a conceptual framework by which the architecture and quality of data warehouse efforts can be assessed and improved using enriched metadata management combined with advanced techniques from databases, business modeling, and artificial intelligence. For researchers and database professionals in academia and industry, the book offers an excellent introduction to the issues of quality and metadata usage in the context of data warehouses.

Internet and web technology penetrates many aspects of our daily life. Its importance as a medium for business transactions will grow exponentially during the next few years. In terms of the involved market volume, the B2B area will hereby be the most interesting area. Also, it will be the place, where the new technology will lead to drastic changes in established customer relationships and business models. In an era where open and flexible electronic commerce provides new types of services to its users, simple 1-1 connections will be replaced by n-m relationships between customers and vendors.
This new flexibility in electronic trading will generate serious challenges. The main problem stems from the heterogeneity of information descriptions used by vendors and customers, creating problems in both manual trading and in direct 1-1 electronic trading. In the case of B2B market places, it becomes too serious to be neglected. Product descriptions, catalog formats and business documents are often unstructured and non-standardized. Intelligent solutions that mechanize the structuring, standardizing, aligning, and personalizing process are a key requisite for successfully overcoming the current bottlenecks of B2B electronic commerce while enabling its further growth. Intelligent Information Integration in B2B Electronic Commerce discusses the main problems of information integration in this area and sketches several technological solution paths.
Intelligent Information Integration in B2B Electronic Commerce is designed to meet the needs of a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners in industry and graduate level students in Computer Science.

Despite the complexity of the subject, this wealth of information is presented succinctly and in such a way, using tables, diagrams and brief explanatory text, as to allow the user to locate information quickly and easily. Thus the book should be invaluable to those involved with the installation, commissioning and maintenance of data communications equipment, as well as the end user.
*A practical engineer's reference that puts the key information at your fingertips
*Covers essential data, techniques and working practice
*This update covers the latest international regulations

Applying multimodal textual analysis to the languages and images of online communication forms, Kay Richardson shows, from an applied linguistic perspective, how the Internet is being used for global, interactive communication about public health risks. Detailed case studies of the possible risks posed by SARS, by mobile phones and by the vaccination of babies against childhood diseases are situated within the context of research on computer-mediated communication, as well as within the broader social context of globalization and discourses of risk and trust.

Mobile Data Management and Applications brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this fast moving area. Mobile Data Management and Applications serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most challenging research issues in the field.

To optimally design and manage a directory service, IS architects and managers must understand current state-of-the-art products. Directory Services covers Novell's NDS eDirectory, Microsoft's Active Directory, UNIX directories and products by NEXOR, MaxWare, Siemens, Critical Path and others. Directory design fundamentals and products are woven into case studies of large enterprise deployments. Cox thoroughly explores replication, security, migration and legacy system integration and interoperability. Business issues such as how to cost justify, plan, budget and manage a directory project are also included. The book culminates in a visionary discussion of future trends and emerging directory technologies including the strategic direction of the top directory products, the impact of wireless technology on directory enabled applications and using directories to customize content delivery from the Enterprise Portal.
Directory Services is a comprehensive and practical guide that provides organizations and consultants with a roadmap used to create the directory enabled global enterprise. To provide the reader with the core knowledge required for designing directory services, the book discusses directory fundamentals including X.500, X.509 and LDAP as well as how to cost justify, plan, budget and manage a directory project
Provides critical info for design, integration, or migration for multiple messaging platforms
Covers all major directories
Provides case studies and guidelines for deployment and integration issues

In today's rapidly changing technological world, it is increasingly important that web and desktop applications be accessible to everyone, including those of us with special needs. However, the legal requirements for accessibility are often convoluted and diffucult to understand, making it impossible for most developers to comply with the laws. In the first book on the market to address the topic, Author John Paul Mueller leads you through the maze of Section 508the congressional law ensuring that all Americans have access to information technologyand offers comprehensive guidance on how to quickly and easily update your applications to conform to Section 508 requirements.

To begin, Mueller outlines the Section 508 requirements that are relevant to web and desktop application developers, and explains the laws in language you can understand. Using extensive and varied program examples, Mueller continues on to teach you to write web and desktop applications that not only conform to Section 508 standards, but look forward to ensure long-term universal accessibility for all types of computer users. Specific topics include writing accessible web applications and desktop applications using Visual Basic .NET and Visual C# .NET, developing special application capabilities, using Microsoft and other third-party tools to develop accessible features, developing accessible scripting solutions, and more. The book even includes a directory of helpful organizations, agencies, and resources to help you with any further accessibility concerns you may have.

This book introduces a promising design for future Internet, the Smart Collaborative Identifier NETwork (SINET). By examining cutting-edge research from around the world, it is the first book to provide a comprehensive survey of SINET, including its basic theories and principles, a broad range of architectures, protocols, standards, and future research directions. For further investigation, the book also provides readers an experimental analysis of SINET to promote further, independent research. The second part of the book presents in detail key technologies in SINET such as scalable routing, efficient mapping systems, mobility management and security issues. In turn, the last part presents various implementations of SINET, assessing its merits. The authors believe SINET will greatly benefit researchers involved in designing future Internet thanks to its high degree of flexibility, security, manageability, mobility support and efficient resource utilization.

Classifying objects into categories at different granularity levels, establishing links between known objects, and discovering clues between known and unknown objects are essential for new-generation semantic data models. This book introduces the Resource Space Model (RSM), which effectively organizes and correctly manages resources by normalizing classification semantics. This volume presents basic models of RSM and the Semantic Link Network (SLN), the relationship between the two, and an approach to integrating the two models and exploring their semantic-rich interconnection. Also detailed is a comprehensive theory of query operations on RSM and extensive coverage of the distributed RSM in parallel with the distributed relational database systems. This text is sure to be considered a substantial contribution to the field of Knowledge Grid by researchers in the areas of web, semantic web, and decentralized data engineering, as well as the emerging semantic and knowledge grid arena.

After the dramatic failures of the dot coms in 2000 and 2001, many observers were quick to report on the death of electronic commerce. Investor confidence sagged, stock prices of technology firms in nearly all of the related sectors suffered. In reality, the picture is not nearly as dismal as the press would have us believe. E-commerce is not dead, but it has moved beyond its overhyped beginning stage. This book is an effort to sort through the hype, providing a realistic assessment of the state of electronic commerce today, and the important areas of opportunity and challenge for tomorrow. The book sees all kind of developments where e-business is becoming an integral part of 'traditional' business processes, with special emphasis on practical and policy importance. E-commerce scholars from a number of disciplines and countries contribute to assess the impact of the dot com bust and the current state of e-commerce.

 The dynamics of the digital economy in the US, Europe and Japan are rather different. Some EU countries come close to the USA as the leading OECD country in the new economy, but Japan faces particular problems in catching-up digitally. Information and communication technology will affect productivity growth, production, the financial system and trade. Setting adequate rules for the digital economy - at the national and international level - is a key challenge for industrialized countries. Moreover, cultural and organizational challenges will also have to be met.

As e-government applications are coming of age, security has been gradually becoming more demanding a requirement for users, administrators, and service providers. The increasingly widespread use of Web services facilitates the exchange of data among various e-government applications, and paves the way for enhanced service delivery. ""Secure E-Government Web Services"" addresses various aspects of building secure e-government architectures and services, and presents the views of experts from academia, policy, and the industry to conclude that secure e-government Web services can be deployed in an application-centric and interoperable way. ""Secure E-Government Web Services"" presents the promising area of Web services, shedding new light onto this innovative area of applications, and responding to the current and upcoming challenges of e-government security.

Recent technological progress in computer science, Web technologies, and the constantly evolving information available on the Internet has drastically changed the landscape of search and access to information. Current search engines employ advanced techniques involving machine learning, social networks, and semantic analysis. Next Generation Search Engines: Advanced Models for Information Retrieval is intended for scientists and decision-makers who wish to gain working knowledge about search in order to evaluate available solutions and to dialogue with software and data providers. The book aims to provide readers with a better idea of the new trends in applied research.

This book presents a specific and unified approach framework to three major components: Search Engines Performance, Link Analysis, and User 's Web Behavior. The book can be used by researchers in the fields of information sciences, engineering (especially software), computer science, statistics and management, who are looking for a unified theoretical approach to finding relevant information on the WWW and a way of interpreting it from a data perspective to a user perspective.

Web Intelligence is a new direction for scientific research and development that explores the fundamental roles as well as practical impacts of artificial intelligence and advanced information technology for the next generation of Web-empowered systems, services, and environments. Web Intelligence is regarded as the key research field for the development of the Wisdom Web (including the Semantic Web). As the first book devoted to Web Intelligence, this coherently written multi-author monograph provides a thorough introduction and a systematic overview of this new field. It presents both the current state of research and development as well as application aspects. The book will be a valuable and lasting source of reference for researchers and developers interested in Web Intelligence. Students and developers will additionally appreciate the numerous illustrations and examples.

Once the basic idea of hypertext had spread rapidly throughout the world via the Internet, the reception of hypertexts soon became subject of empirical research among psychologists, cognitive scientists, and educational researchers. As easy to use software for the writing of hypertexts (HTML editors) is now broadly available, there are no longer any technical obstacles for the use of hypertext production in teaching and learning. This book presents and analyses the learning effects that can be anticipated from the production of hypertexts. It includes laboratory experiments, studies on the production of hypertexts in the context of educational institutions, and reports on software environments designed for the production of hypertext. It includes theoretical, empirically and developmentally oriented contributions. The first three chapters link up directly with research on traditional writing while addressing aspects of the interaction between content and rhetoric during hypertext writing. The next three chapters focus on cooperative learning of students in and through the production of hypertexts. The following two chapters look at new technological possibilities, namely, a software environment for transforming textbooks into personalized hypertexts and the design of hypervideos. The final chapter discusses potential methods for further research.

With the daily addition of million documents and new users, there is no doubt that the World Wide Web (WWW or Web shortly) is still expanding its global information infrastructure. Thanks to low-cost wireless technology, the Web is no more limited to homes or offices, but it is simply everywhere. The Web is so large and growing so rapidly that the 40 million page "WebBase" repository of Inktomi corresponds to only about 4% of the estimated size of the publicly indexable Web as of January 2000 and there is every reason to believe these numbers will all swell significantly in the next few years. This unrestrainable explosion is not bereft of troubles and drawbacks, especially for inexpert users. Probably the most critical problem is the effectiveness of Web search engines: though the Web is rich in providing numerous services, the primary use of the Internet falls in emails and information retrieval activities. Focusing in this latter, any user has felt the frustrating experience to see as result of a search query overwhelming numbers of pages that satisfy the query but that are irrelevant to the user.