Software has long been perceived as complex, at least within Software Engineering circles. We have been living in a recognised state of crisis since the first NATO Software Engineering conference in 1968. Time and again we have been proven unable to engineer reliable software as easily/cheaply as we imagined. Cost overruns and expensive failures are the norm.
The problem is fundamentally one of complexity: software is fundamentally complex because it must be precise. Problems that appear to be specified quite easily in plain language become far more complex when written in a more formal notation, such as computer code. Comparisons with other engineering disciplines are deceptive. One cannot easily increase the factor of safety of software in the same way that one could in building a steel structure, for example. Software is typically built assuming perfection, often without adequate safety nets in case the unthinkable happens. In such circumstances it should not be surprising to find out that (seemingly) minor errors have the potential to cause entire software systems to collapse.
The goal of this book is to uncover techniques that will aid in overcoming complexity and enable us to produce reliable, dependable computer systems that will operate as intended, and yet are produced on-time, in budget, and are evolvable, both over time and at run time. We hope that the contributions in this book will aid in understanding the nature of software complexity and provide guidance for the control or avoidance of complexity in the engineering of complex software systems.

M-commerce (mobile-commerce) refers to e-commerce activities carried out via a mobile terminal such as a phone or PDA. M-commerce applications for both individuals and organizations are expected to grow considerably over the next few years. Mobile Commerce: Technology, Theory and Applications addresses issues pertaining to the development, deployment, and use of these applications. The objective of this book is to provide a single source of up-to-date information about mobile commerce including the technology (hardware and software) involved, research on the expected impact of this technology on businesses and consumers, and case studies describing state-of-the-art m-commerce applications and lessons learned.

This Festschrift is in honor of Marilyn Wolf, on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Prof. Wolf is a renowned researcher and educator in Electrical and Computer Engineering, who has made pioneering contributions in all of the major areas in Embedded, Cyber-Physical, and Internet of Things (IoT) Systems. This book provides a timely collection of contributions that cover important topics related to Smart Cameras, Hardware/Software Co-Design, and Multimedia applications. Embedded systems are everywhere; cyber-physical systems enable monitoring and control of complex physical processes with computers; and IoT technology is of increasing relevance in major application areas, including factory automation, and smart cities. Smart cameras and multimedia technologies introduce novel opportunities and challenges in embedded, cyber-physical and IoT applications. Advanced hardware/software co-design methodologies provide valuable concepts and tools for addressing these challenges. The diverse topics of the chapters in this Festschrift help to reflect the great breadth and depth of Marilyn Wolf's contributions in research and education. The chapters have been written by some of Marilyn's closest collaborators and colleagues.

"Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics "merges two long-running serials--"Advances in Electronics and Electron Physics" and "Advances in Optical and Electron Microscopy."
This series features extended articles on the physics of electron devices (especially semiconductor devices), particle optics at high and low energies, microlithography, image science and digital image processing, electromagnetic wave propagation, electron microscopy, and the computing methods used in all these domains.
Key features:

* Contributions from leading authorities * Informs and updates on all the latest developments in the field

This book addresses the question of how to achieve social coordination in Socio-Cognitive Technical Systems (SCTS). SCTS are a class of Socio-Technical Systems that are complex, open, systems where several humans and digital entities interact in order to achieve some collective endeavour. The book approaches the question from the conceptual background of regulated open multiagent systems, with the question being motivated by their design and construction requirements. The book captures the collective effort of eight groups from leading research centres and universities, each of which has developed a conceptual framework for the design of regulated multiagent systems and most have also developed technological artefacts that support the processes from specification to implementation of that type of systems. The first, introductory part of the book describes the challenge of developing frameworks for SCTS and articulates the premises and the main concepts involved in those frameworks. The second part discusses the eight frameworks and contrasts their main components. The final part maps the new field by discussing the types of activities in which SCTS are likely to be used, the features that such uses will exhibit, and the challenges that will drive the evolution of this field.

Tearing and interconnecting methods, such as FETI, FETI-DP, BETI, etc., are among the most successful domain decomposition solvers for partial differential equations. The purpose of this book is to give a detailed and self-contained presentation of these methods, including the corresponding algorithms as well as a rigorous convergence theory. In particular, two issues are addressed that have not been covered in any monograph yet: the coupling of finite and boundary elements within the tearing and interconnecting framework including exterior problems, and the case of highly varying (multiscale) coefficients not resolved by the subdomain partitioning. In this context, the book offers a detailed view to an active and up-to-date area of research.

Enabling information interoperability, fostering legal knowledge usability and reuse, enhancing legal information search, in short, formalizing the complexity of legal knowledge to enhance legal knowledge management are challenging tasks, for which different solutions and lines of research have been proposed.

During the last decade, research and applications based on the use of legal ontologies as a technique to represent legal knowledge has raised a very interesting debate about their capacity and limitations to represent conceptual structures in the legal domain. Making conceptual legal knowledge explicit would support the development of a web of legal knowledge, improve communication, create trust and enable and support open data, e-government and e-democracy activities. Moreover, this explicit knowledge is also relevant to the formalization of software agents and the shaping of virtual institutions and multi-agent systems or environments.

This book explores the use of ontologism in legal knowledge representation for semantically-enhanced legal knowledge systems or web-based applications. In it, current methodologies, tools and languages used for ontology development are revised, and the book includes an exhaustive revision of existing ontologies in the legal domain. The development of the Ontology of Professional Judicial Knowledge (OPJK) is presented as a case study.
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Whether by synergy or by synthesis, development and technology are becoming synonymous in every domain. Cases on Transnational Learning and Technologically Enabled Environments reports on national and international initiatives undertaken to adapt advancements in information and communication technology and successfully face the challenges posed by various social and economic forces. The international research in this book represents instances of institutions that are in transition as well as those that are readily using technology in education.

Scheduling theory has received a growing interest since its origins in the second half of the 20th century. Developed initially for the study of scheduling problems with a single objective, the theory has been recently extended to problems involving multiple criteria. However, this extension has still left a gap between the classical multi-criteria approaches and some real-life problems in which not all jobs contribute to the evaluation of each criterion.

In this book, we close this gap by presenting and developing multi-agent scheduling models in which subsets of jobs sharing the same resources are evaluated by different criteria. Several scenarios are introduced, depending on the definition and the intersection structure of the job subsets. Complexity results, approximation schemes, heuristics and exact algorithms are discussed for single-machine and parallel-machine scheduling environments. Definitions and algorithms are illustrated with the help of examples and figures.

"Computer Science and Convergence"is proceedings of the 3rd FTRA International Conference on Computer Science and its Applications (CSA-11) and The 2011 FTRA World Convergence Conference (FTRA WCC 2011). The topics of CSA and WCC cover the current hot topics satisfying the world-wide ever-changing needs.

CSA-11 will be the most comprehensive conference focused on the various aspects of advances in computer science and its applicationsand will provide an opportunity for academic and industry professionals to discuss the latest issues and progress in the area of CSA. In addition, the conference will publish high quality papers which are closely related to the various theories and practical applications in CSA. Furthermore, we expect that the conference and its publications will be a trigger for further related research and technology improvements in this important subject. The main scope of CSA-11 is as follows:

- Mobile and ubiquitous computing
- Dependable, reliable and autonomic computing
- Security and trust management
- Multimedia systems and services
- Networking and communications
- Database and data mining
- Game and software engineering
- Grid, cloud and scalable computing
- Embedded system and software
- Artificial intelligence
- Distributed and parallel algorithms
- Web and internet computing
- IT policy and business management

WCC-11 is a major conference for scientists, engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to present the latest research, results, ideas, developments and applications in all areas of convergence technologies. The main scope of WCC-11 is as follows:

- Cryptography and Security for Converged environments - Wireless sensor network for Converged environments
- Multimedia for Converged environments
- Advanced Vehicular Communications Technology for Converged environments
- Human centric computing, P2P, Grid and Cloud computing for Converged environments
- U-Healthcare for Converged environments
- Strategic Security Management for Industrial Technology
- Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Surveillance Systems "

'Rough Computing' explores the application of rough set theory, which has attracted attention because of the ability to enhance databases by allowing for the management of uncertainty, a comparative analysis between rough sets, and other intelligent data analysis.

Since its first volume in 1960, Advances in Computers has presented detailed coverage of innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design, and applications. It has also provided contributors with a medium in which they can explore their subjects in greater depth and breadth than journal articles usually allow. As a result, many articles have become standard references that continue to be of sugnificant, lasting value in this rapidly expanding field.
In-depth surveys and tutorials on new computer technologyWell-known authors and researchers in the fieldExtensive bibliographies with most chaptersMany of the volumes are devoted to single themes or subfields of computer science

Modelling for Business Improvement contains the proceedings of the First International Conference on Process Modelling and Process Management (MMEP 2010) held in Cambridge, England, in March 2010. It contains contributions from an international group of leading researchers in the fields of process modelling and process management. This conference will showcase recent trends in the modelling and management of engineering processes, explore potential synergies between different modelling approaches, gather and discuss future challenges for the management of engineering processes and discuss future research areas and topics. Modelling for Business Improvement is divided into three main parts: theoretical foundation of modelling and management of engineering processes, and achievements in theory; experiences from management practice using various modelling methods and tools, and their future challenges; and, new perspectives on modelling methods, techniques and tools. Based on the latest achievements in this and related fields, the editors aim to landmark the research map for modelling and management of engineering processes for 2020.

As population increases, the need for energy becomes a crisis of great importance. Technologies for Electrical Power Conversion, Efficiency, and Distribution: Methods and Processes combines unparalleled research, contemporary achievements, and emerging trends within electrical energy conversion technologies and renewable energy sources. The scholarly findings compiled provide a background for discussion of the problems and opportunities of power efficiency and energy conversion in order to develop innovative ways to implement such cutting-edge technologies in the future.

Biological and biomedical studies have entered a new era over the past two decades thanks to the wide use of mathematical models and computational approaches. A booming of computational biology, which sheerly was a theoretician's fantasy twenty years ago, has become a reality. Obsession with computational biology and theoretical approaches is evidenced in articles hailing the arrival of what are va- ously called quantitative biology, bioinformatics, theoretical biology, and systems biology. New technologies and data resources in genetics, such as the International HapMap project, enable large-scale studies, such as genome-wide association st- ies, which could potentially identify most common genetic variants as well as rare variants of the human DNA that may alter individual's susceptibility to disease and the response to medical treatment. Meanwhile the multi-electrode recording from behaving animals makes it feasible to control the animal mental activity, which could potentially lead to the development of useful brain-machine interfaces. - bracing the sheer volume of genetic, genomic, and other type of data, an essential approach is, ?rst of all, to avoid drowning the true signal in the data. It has been witnessed that theoretical approach to biology has emerged as a powerful and st- ulating research paradigm in biological studies, which in turn leads to a new - search paradigm in mathematics, physics, and computer science and moves forward with the interplays among experimental studies and outcomes, simulation studies, and theoretical investigations.

New Edition: Introduction to Computational Earthquake Engineering (3rd Edition)Introduction to Computational Earthquake Engineering covers solid continuum mechanics, finite element method and stochastic modeling comprehensively, with the second and third chapters explaining the numerical simulation of strong ground motion and faulting, respectively. Stochastic modeling is used for uncertain underground structures, and advanced analytical methods for linear and non-linear stochastic models are presented. The verification of these methods by comparing the simulation results with observed data is then presented, and examples of numerical simulations which apply these methods to practical problems are generously provided. Furthermore three advanced topics of computational earthquake engineering are covered, detailing examples of applying computational science technology to earthquake engineering problems.

"Digital Forensics for Legal Professionals" provides you with a guide to digital technology forensics in plain English. In the authors years of experience in working with attorneys as digital forensics experts, common questions arise again and again: What do I ask for? Is the evidence relevant? What does this item in the forensic report mean? What should I ask the other expert? What should I ask you? Can you explain that to a jury? This book answers many of those questions in clear language that is understandable by non-technical people. With many illustrations and diagrams that will be usable in court, they explain technical concepts such as unallocated space, forensic copies, timeline artifacts and metadata in simple terms that make these concepts accessible to both attorneys and juries.

The authors also explain how to determine what evidence to ask for, evidence might be that could be discoverable, and the methods for getting to it including relevant subpoena and motion language. Additionally, this book provides an overview of the current state of digital forensics, the right way to select a qualified expert, what to expect from a qualified expert and how to properly use experts before and during trial.
Includes a companion Web site with: courtroom illustrations, and examples of discovery motionsProvides examples of direct and cross examination questions for digital evidenceContains a reference of definitions of digital forensic terms, relevant case law, and resources for the attorney"

Decision-aiding software, the underpinning of computer-aided judicial analysis, can facilitate the prediction of how cases are likely to be decided, prescribe decisions that should be reached in such cases, and help administrate more efficiently the court process. It can do so, says Nagel, by listing past cases on each row of a spreadsheet matrix, by listing predictive criteria in the columns, and in general by showing for each factual element the estimated probability of winning a case. The software aggregates the information available and deduces likely outcomes. But it can also prescribe judicial decisions by listing alternatives in the rows, the goals to be achieved in the columns, and by showing relations between alternatives in the cells. By similar means decision-aiding software can also help perform administrative tasks, such as rationally assigning judges or other personnel to cases, and by sequencing cases to reduce the time consumed by each case.

In Part I, Nagel provides an overview of computer-aided analysis and the role of decision-aiding software in the legal process. In the second part he deals with judicial prediction from prior cases and from present facts; and in the third part he emphasizes the prescribing role of judges, particularly in deciding the rules that ought to be applied in civil and criminal procedures. Nagel also covers computer-aided mediation and provides a new perspective on judicial decisions. Then, in Part IV, he treats at length the process of judicial administration and how to improve its efficiency. Of particular interest to court personnel will be the benefits to be derived from reducing delays and in the docketing and sequencing of cases.

Technological advancements have become an integral part of life, impacting the way we work, communicate, make decisions, learn, and play. As technology continually progresses, humans are being outpaced by its capabilities, and it is important for businesses, organizations, and individuals to understand how to optimize data and to implement new methods for more efficient knowledge discovery and information management and retrieval. Innovative Applications of Knowledge Discovery and Information Resources Management offers in-depth coverage on the pervasiveness of technological change with a collection of material on topics such as the impact of permeable work-life boundaries, burnout and turnover, big data usage, and computer-based learning. It proves a worthy source for academicians, practitioners, IT leaders, IT professionals, and advanced-level students interested in examining the ways in which technology is changing the world.

This edited book presents scientific results of the 14th IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Computer and Information Science (ICIS 2015) which was held on June 28 - July 1, 2015 in Las Vegas, USA. The aim of this conference was to bring together researchers and scientists, businessmen and entrepreneurs, teachers, engineers, computer users, and students to discuss the numerous fields of computer science and to share their experiences and exchange new ideas and information in a meaningful way. Research results about all aspects (theory, applications and tools) of computer and information science, and to discuss the practical challenges encountered along the way and the solutions adopted to solve them.

This book deals with the problem of finding suitable languages that can represent specific classes of Petri nets, the most studied and widely accepted model for distributed systems. Hence, the contribution of this book amounts to the alphabetization of some classes of distributed systems. The book also suggests the need for a generalization of Turing computability theory. It is important for graduate students and researchers engaged with the concurrent semantics of distributed communicating systems. The author assumes some prior knowledge of formal languages and theoretical computer science.

The information infrastructure - comprising computers, embedded devices, networks and software systems - is vital to operations in every sector: inf- mation technology, telecommunications, energy, banking and ?nance, tra- portation systems, chemicals, agriculture and food, defense industrial base, public health and health care, national monuments and icons, drinking water and water treatment systems, commercial facilities, dams, emergency services, commercial nuclear reactors, materials and waste, postal and shipping, and government facilities. Global business and industry, governments, indeed - ciety itself, cannot function if major components of the critical information infrastructure are degraded, disabled or destroyed. This book, Critical Infrastructure Protection III, is the third volume in the annualseriesproducedbyIFIP WorkingGroup11.10onCriticalInfrastructure Protection, an active international community of scientists, engineers, prac- tioners and policy makers dedicated to advancing research, development and implementation e?orts related to critical infrastructure protection. The book presents original research results and innovative applications in the area of infrastructure protection. Also, it highlights the importance of weaving s- ence, technology and policy in crafting sophisticated, yet practical, solutions that will help secure information, computer and network assets in the various critical infrastructure sectors. This volume contains seventeen edited papers from the Third Annual IFIP Working Group 11.10 International Conference on Critical Infrastructure P- tection, held at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 23-25, 2009. The papers were refereed by members of IFIP Working Group 11.10 and other internationally-recognized experts in critical infrastructure protection.