This book presents a general framework analysis of sovereignty in blockchain based on the concept of blockchain technology, and specifically discusses the three theoretical foundations of sovereignty in blockchain: data sovereignty theory, social trust theory, and smart contract theory. It also explores the evolution of laws concerning data and digital rights, how to build trust mechanisms for digital rights transactions, as well as contract signing and the implementation of digital rights transactions.

Here's a thorough introduction to the latest developments in database systems design presented from an applications point of view. Featuring contributions from well-known experts in the field, this book pays special attention to issues raised by new trends in database design, and how these developments affect the programmer and database administrator.

This two-volume set of IFIP AICT 617 and 618 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP WG 8.6 International Working Conference "Re-imagining Diffusion and Adoption of Information Technology and Systems: A Continuing Conversation" on Transfer and Diffusion of IT, TDIT 2020, held in Tiruchirappalli, India, in December 2020.The 86 revised full papers and 36 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 224 submissions. The papers focus on the re-imagination of diffusion and adoption of emerging technologies. They are organized in the following parts: Part I: artificial intelligence and autonomous systems; big data and analytics; blockchain; diffusion and adoption technology; emerging technologies in e-Governance; emerging technologies in consumer decision making and choice; fin-tech applications; healthcare information technology; and Internet of Things Part II: diffusion of information technology and disaster management; adoption of mobile and platform-based applications; smart cities and digital government; social media; and diffusion of information technology and systems

This book provides an overview of the most recent developments in Internet of Things (IoT) security and data protection. It presents the results of several international research projects addressing this topic from complementary angles. It starts by analyzing the main privacy and security threats on IoT, as well as the evolution of data protection norms, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and their impact on IoT. Through a comprehensive and systematic approach, the contributors present new perspectives on IoT & Cloud Computing security requirements. They discuss the most recent approach to support trusted IoT, including new models of privacy risk assessment, labeling and certification, and contractual tools (such as Privacy PACT). Practical implementations, such as in the European Large Scale Pilots on IoT for Smart Cities (Synchronicity), are presented, explaining how they address security, privacy and data protection. Finally, innovative models to secure IoT systems are presented for the network and end-nodes security, including network threats analysis.

This book presents high-quality, original contributions (both theoretical and experimental) on Information Security, Machine Learning, Data Mining and Internet of Things (IoT). It gathers papers presented at ICETIT 2019, the 1st International Conference on Emerging Trends in Information Technology, which was held in Delhi, India, in June 2019. This conference series represents a targeted response to the growing need for research that reports on and assesses the practical implications of IoT and network technologies, AI and machine learning, data analytics and cloud computing, security and privacy, and next generation computing technologies.

This book discusses various aspects of blockchains in economic systems and investment strategies in crypto markets. It first addresses the topic from a conceptual and theoretical point of view, and then analyzes it from an assessment and investment angle. Further, it examines the opportunities and limitations of the taxation of crypto currency, as well as the political implications, such as regulation of speculation with crypto currencies. The book is intended for academicians and students in the fields of economics and finance.

This book is an important outcome of the Fifth World Internet Conference. It provides a comprehensive account of the new trends and highlights of global Internet development over the past year, covering network infrastructure, information technology, digital economy, world internet media, cyber security, and international cyberspace governance. This year, the book improves the Global Internet Development Index System and adds more countries into the assessed list, in order to reflect more comprehensively, objectively and accurately the general situation of the world Internet development and thus to provide reference for all countries in promoting Internet development and governance.

Intelligent methods are used in distributed environments in countless ways, with examples such as propagation, communication, collaboration, and cooperation. With the abundant purposes for intelligence in distributed systems, it is pertinent for researchers, technicians, and students in various areas of computer science to discover the most current and definitive advances in the field.""Intelligence Integration in Distributed Knowledge Management"" provides recent technologies and practices in intelligence for distributed systems, while covering major aspects of the agent based systems. This book is a must for those striving to enhance their understanding of distributed knowledge management and extend their ideas of cooperation using for numerous real-world problems.

The increasing trend of multimedia data use is likely to accelerate creating an urgent need of providing a clear means of capturing, storing, indexing, retrieving, analyzing, and summarizing data through image data. ""Artificial Intelligence for Maximizing Content Based Image Retrieval"" discusses major aspects of content-based image retrieval (CBIR) using current technologies and applications within the artificial intelligence (AI) field. Providing state-of-the-art research from leading international experts, this book offers a theoretical perspective and practical solutions for academicians, researchers, and industry practitioners.

This book explores the concepts and techniques of IoT, AI, and blockchain. Also discussed is the possibility of applying blockchain for providing security in various domains. The specific highlight of this book is focused on the application of integrated technologies in enhancing data models, better insights and discovery, intelligent predictions, smarter finance, smart retail, global verification, transparent governance, and innovative audit systems. The book allows both practitioners and researchers to share their opinions and recent research in the convergence of these technologies among academicians and industry people. The contributors present their technical evaluation and compare it with existing technologies. Theoretical explanation and experimental case studies related to real-time scenarios are also included. This book pertains to IT professionals, researchers and academicians working on fourth revolution technologies.

This contributed volume discusses diverse topics to demystify the rapidly emerging and evolving blockchain technology, the emergence of integrated platforms and hosted third-party tools, and the development of decentralized applications for various business domains. It presents various applications that are helpful for research scholars and scientists who are working toward identifying and pinpointing the potential of as well as the hindrances to this technology.

This book discusses the design and implementation of, as well as experimentation on, an open cross-layer framework and associated methodology to provide voluntary interoperability among heterogeneous Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. It allows readers to effectively and efficiently develop smart IoT applications for various heterogeneous IoT platforms, spanning single and/or multiple application domains. To do so, it provides an interoperable framework architecture for the seamless integration of different IoT architectures present in different application domains. In this regard, interoperability is pursued at various levels: device, network, middleware, services and data.

Collecting the latest research results from the leading researchers in the field of fuzzy object-oriented databases, Advances in Fuzzy Object-Oriented Databases: Modeling and Applications provide a single source for current research and practical applications in fuzzy object-oriented databases. This book includes major aspects of fuzzy object-oriented database modeling - conceptual, logical and physical, as well as details of implementations and applications. Readers will benefit from a complete understanding of the notions, techniques, and methods related to the research and developments of fuzzy object-oriented databases. This book can act as a starting point and a reference for their research and developments and stimulate the interest in the field of fuzzy object-oriented databases and further promote the research in the field.

Rising concerns about the security of our data have made quantum cryptography a very active research field in recent years. Quantum cryptographic protocols promise everlasting security by exploiting distinctive quantum properties of nature. The most extensively implemented protocol is quantum key distribution (QKD), which enables secure communication between two users. The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to state-of-the-art QKD and illustrate its recent multi-user generalization: quantum conference key agreement. With its pedagogical approach that doesn't disdain going into details, the book enables the reader to join in cutting-edge research on quantum cryptography.

This book features a collection of high-quality research papers presented at the International Conference on Tourism, Technology & Systems (ICOTTS 2020), held at the University of Cartagena, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, from 29th to 31st October 2020. The book is divided into two volumes, and it covers the areas of technology in tourism and the tourist experience, generations and technology in tourism, digital marketing applied to tourism and travel, mobile technologies applied to sustainable tourism, information technologies in tourism, digital transformation of tourism business, e-tourism and tourism 2.0, big data and management for travel and tourism, geotagging and tourist mobility, smart destinations, robotics in tourism, and information systems and technologies.

This book provides both a broad overview of the forecasting process, covering technological and human aspects alike, and deep insights into algorithms and platform functionalities in the IBP toolbox required to maximize forecast accuracy. Rich in technical and business explanations, it addresses short-, medium- and long-term forecasting processes using functionalities available in demand planning and demand sensing. There are also several theoretical concepts underpinning the algorithms discussed; these are explained with numerical examples to help demystify the IBP forecasting toolbox. Beyond standard procedures, the book also discusses custom approaches (e.g. new segmentation criteria, new outlier detection and correction methods) and new methods (e.g. the use of Markov chains for forecasting sporadic demands), etc. It subsequently benchmarks common practices using these innovative approaches and discusses the results. As measurement is an important precondition for improvement, an entire chapter is devoted to discussing process improvement and value using the Six Sigma methodology. In closing, the book provides several useful tips and tricks that should come in handy during project implementation.

Recent advancements in technology have influenced major change within many industries. Because of such advancements, businesses and organizations are adapting to a more technology based work environment in order achieve a higher rate of production, output, and accuracy. Methodological Advancements in Intelligent Information Technologies: Evolutionary Trends brings together research from international authors detailing developments in intelligent information technologies and their impact on organizational environments. This esteemed reference publication covers topics on agent-based approaches to process management, semantic Web services, data mining techniques, engineering software technologies, and scalable and adaptive Web search engines, in order to provide current research for practitioners, educators, and students interested in the implementation of innovative technologies in a variety of work environments.

This book provides a critical comprehensive summary of the coevolution of telecom markets, rules and public institutions over the last 25 years, focusing on the challenges that regulators and policy makers have been facing. Even if the perspective of the book is European (as the EU regulatory framework is examined), most of the economic and institutional issues addressed are common to all telecom markets in advanced economies. The book addresses some traditional fundamental topics in the telecom regulation literature, as well as some hot-button topics in the current policy debate, e.g., ultrafast broadband and 5G networks, the relationship between investments and competition, the sector digitalisation and the role of OTTs. All these are relevant to students, researchers, and policy makers interested to get a sound understanding of the sector, its many dimensions and coevolutionary patterns.

This book includes papers on intelligent expert systems and sustainability applications in the areas of data science, image processing, wireless communication, risk assessment, healthcare, intelligent social network mining, and energy. The recent growth of sustainability leads to a progressively new era of computing, where its design and deployment leverages significant impact on the intelligent systems research. Moreover, the sustainability technologies can be effectively used in the progressive deployment of various network-enabled technologies like intelligent sensors, smart cities, wearable technologies, robotics, web applications and other such Internet technologies. The thrust of this book is to publish the state-of-the-art research articles that deals with the design, development, implementation and testing of the intelligent expert systems and also to provide an overview of the sustainable management of these systems.

This book presents a theory of information justice that subsumes the question of control and relates it to other issues that influence just social outcomes. Data does not exist by nature. Bureaucratic societies must provide standardized inputs for governing algorithms, a problem that can be understood as one of legibility. This requires, though, converting what we know about social objects and actions into data, narrowing the many possible representations of the objects to a definitive one using a series of translations. Information thus exists within a nexus of problems, data, models, and actions that the social actors constructing the data bring to it. This opens information to analysis from social and moral perspectives, while the scientistic view leaves us blind to the gains from such analysis-especially to the ways that embedded values and assumptions promote injustice. Toward Information Justice answers a key question for the 21st Century: how can an information-driven society be just? Many of those concerned with the ethics of data focus on control over data, and argue that if data is only controlled by the right people then just outcomes will emerge. There are serious problems with this control metaparadigm, however, especially related to the initial creation of data and prerequisites for its use. This text is suitable for academics in the fields of information ethics, political theory, philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies, as well as policy professionals who rely on data to reach increasingly problematic conclusions about courses of action.

This book provides detailed descriptions of big data solutions for activity detection and forecasting of very large numbers of moving entities spread across large geographical areas. It presents state-of-the-art methods for processing, managing, detecting and predicting trajectories and important events related to moving entities, together with advanced visual analytics methods, over multiple heterogeneous, voluminous, fluctuating and noisy data streams from moving entities, correlating them with data from archived data sources expressing e.g. entities' characteristics, geographical information, mobility patterns, mobility regulations and intentional data. The book is divided into six parts: Part I discusses the motivation and background of mobility forecasting supported by trajectory-oriented analytics, and includes specific problems and challenges in the aviation (air-traffic management) and the maritime domains. Part II focuses on big data quality assessment and processing, and presents novel technologies suitable for mobility analytics components. Next, Part III describes solutions toward processing and managing big spatio-temporal data, particularly enriching data streams and integrating streamed and archival data to provide coherent views of mobility, and storing of integrated mobility data in large distributed knowledge graphs for efficient query-answering. Part IV focuses on mobility analytics methods exploiting (online) processed, synopsized and enriched data streams as well as (offline) integrated, archived mobility data, and highlights future location and trajectory prediction methods, distinguishing between short-term and more challenging long-term predictions. Part V examines how methods addressing data management, data processing and mobility analytics are integrated in big data architectures with distinctive characteristics compared to other known big data paradigmatic architectures. Lastly, Part VI covers important ethical issues that research on mobility analytics should address. Providing novel approaches and methodologies related to mobility detection and forecasting needs based on big data exploration, processing, storage, and analysis, this book will appeal to computer scientists and stakeholders in various application domains.

This book reflects the latest research trends, methods and experimental results in the field of electrical and information technologies for rail transportation, which covers abundant state-of-the-art research theories and ideas. As a vital field of research that is highly relevant to current developments in a number of technological domains, the subjects it covered include intelligent computing, information processing, Communication Technology, Automatic Control, etc. The objective of the proceedings is to provide a major interdisciplinary forum for researchers, engineers, academicians as well as industrial professionals to present the most innovative research and development in the field of rail transportation electrical and information technologies. Engineers and researchers in academia, industry, and the government will also explore an insight view of the solutions that combine ideas from multiple disciplines in this field. The volumes serve as an excellent reference work for researchers and graduate students working on rail transportation, electrical and information technologies.

This book examines how digital technologies enable collaboration as a way for individuals, teams and businesses to connect, create value, and harness new opportunities. Digital technologies have brought the world closer together but also created new barriers and divides. While it is now possible to connect almost instantly and seamlessly across the globe, collaboration comes at a cost; it requires new skills and hidden 'collaboration work', and the need to renegotiate the fair distribution of value in multi-stakeholder network arrangements. Presenting state-of-the-art research, case studies, and leading voices in the field, the book provides academics and professionals with insights into the diverse powers of collaboration in the digital age, spanning collaboration among professionals, organisations, and consumers. It brings together contributions from scholars interested in the collaboration of teams, cooperatives, projects, and new cooperative systems, covering a range of sectors from the sharing economy, health care, large project businesses to public sector collaboration.

This book is intended as a guide to and manual on modeling complex problems in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). It encourages practitioners to consider the practicalities of real-world scenarios when modeling, while at the same time providing tips and examples of how to incorporate these realities into the initial decision matrix. The goal is to help readers build a decision matrix that replicates reality as closely as possible. Once this matrix has been constructed, the Decision Maker (DM) can select from more than a hundred MCDM methods the one that best fits the requirements and conditions of the matrix. The book features cases taken from real-world scenarios, which deal with various fields, aspects, and characteristics, and are solved using the SIMUS (Sequential Interactive Modeling for Urban Systems) method. This book is a valuable tool for practitioners, researchers and students dealing with MCDM problems.