Many organisations are using an increased range of information technologies to support a variety of new organisational practices and organisational forms. The book aims to investigate the integration of information technologies into work places and their effect on work and work-life. Issues include changes in: the nature, quantity and quality of work; power relations; privacy; and aspects of organisational culture. The book also considers the social process of shifting from present organisational structures and practices to new ones.

The book serves as a connecting medium between various domains and Blockchain technology, discussing and embracing how Blockchain technology is transforming all the major sectors of the society. The book facilitates sharing of information, case studies, theoretical and practical knowledge required for Blockchain transformations in various sectors. The book covers different areas that provide the foundational knowledge and comprehensive information about the transformations by Blockchain technology in the fields of business, healthcare, finance, education, supply-chain, sustainability and governance. The book pertains to students, academics, researchers, professionals, and policy makers working in the area of Blockchain technology and related fields.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT) from a government and public policy perspective. Since 2011, federal spending on IoT has been growing at a compound annual rate of ten percent. New technologies, such as sensors, and new kinds of data, such as big data, are creating new ways to systematically capture data and to use it to respond to complex problems. Some of these new technologies and applications have been identified and studied in recent literature in terms of their relevance to government. This volume adds to the literature by presenting sound theories and concepts for understanding the opportunities and challenges governments face when seeking to improve public services and government operations through the use of IoT. It also includes innovative methodologies for building understanding of the potential of a smart and connected government. In addition, the book offers relevant case studies and practical recommendations for the development, management, and evaluation of public policies and government programs.

Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) are multi-user virtual realities which actively support communication and co-operation. This book offers a comprehensive reference volume to the state-of-the-art in the area of design studies in CVEs. It is an excellent mix of contributions from over 25 leading researcher/experts in multiple disciplines from academia and industry, providing up-to-date insight into the current research topics in this field as well as the latest technological advancements and the best working examples. Many of these results and ideas are also applicable to other areas such as CVE for design education.

Overall, this bookserves asan excellent reference for postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners who need a comprehensive approach to study the design behaviours in CVEs. It is also a useful and informative source of materials for those interested in learning more on using/developing CVEs to support design and design collaboration. "

This book provides innovative ideas on achieving sustainable development and using green technologies to conserve our ecosystem. Innovation is the successful exploitation of a new idea. Through innovation, we can achieve MORE while using LESS. Innovations in science & technology will not only help mankind as a whole, but also contribute to the economic growth of individual countries. It is essential that the global problem of environmental degradation be addressed immediately, and thus, we need to rethink the concept of sustainable development. Indeed, new environmentally friendly technologies are fundamental to attaining sustainable development. The book shares a wealth of innovative green technological ideas on how to preserve and improve the quality of the environment, and how to establish a more resource-efficient and sustainable society. The book provides an interdisciplinary approach to addressing various technical issues and capitalizing on advances in computing & optimization for scientific & technological development, smart information, communication, bio-monitoring, smart cities, food quality assessment, waste management, environmental aspects, alternative energies, sustainable infrastructure development, etc. In short, it offers valuable information and insights for budding engineers, researchers, upcoming young minds and industry professionals, promoting awareness for recent advances in the various fields mentioned above.

Information Retrieval (IR) has concentrated on the development of information management systems to support user retrieval from large collections of homogeneous textual material. A variety of approaches have been tried and tested with varying degrees of success over many decades of research. Hypertext (HT) systems, on the other hand, provide a retrieval paradigm based on browsing through a structured information space, following pre-defined connections between information fragments until an information need is satisfied, or appears to be. Information Retrieval and Hypertext addresses the confluence of the areas of IR and HT and explores the work done to date in applying techniques from one area, to the other leading to the development of hypertext information retrieval' (HIR) systems. An important aspect of the work in IR/HT and in any user-centred information system is the emergence of multimedia information and such multimedia information is treated as an integral information type in this text. The contributed chapters cover the development of integrated hypertext information retrieval models, and the application of IR and HT techniques in hypertext construction and the approaches that can be taken in searching HIR systems. These chapters are complemented by two overview chapters covering, respectively, information retrieval and hypertext research and developments. Information Retrieval and Hypertext is important as it is the first text to directly address the combined searching/browsing paradigm of information discovery which is becoming so important in modern computing environments. It will be of interest to researchers and professionals working in a range of areas related to information discovery.

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 open access book comprehensively consolidates studies in the rapidly emerging field of battery management. The primary focus is to overview the new and emerging data science technologies for full-lifespan management of Li-ion batteries, which are categorized into three groups, namely (i) battery manufacturing management, (ii) battery operation management, and (iii) battery reutilization management. The key challenges, future trends as well as promising data-science technologies to further improve this research field are discussed. As battery full-lifespan (manufacturing, operation, and reutilization) management is a hot research topic in both energy and AI fields and none specific book has focused on systematically describing this particular from a data science perspective before, this book can attract the attention of academics, scientists, engineers, and practitioners. It is useful as a reference book for students and graduates working in related fields. Specifically, the audience could not only get the basics of battery manufacturing, operation, and reutilization but also the information of related data-science technologies. The step-by-step guidance, comprehensive introduction, and case studies to the topic make it accessible to audiences of different levels, from graduates to experienced engineers.

This book provides timely studies on multi-view facets of data analytics by covering recent trends in processing and reasoning about data originating from an array of local sources. A multi-view nature of data analytics is encountered when working with a variety of real-world scenarios including clustering, consensus building in decision processes, computer vision, knowledge representation, big data, data streaming, among others. The chapters demonstrate recent pursuits in the methodology, theory, advanced algorithms, and applications of multi-view data analytics and bring new perspectives of data interpretation. The timely book will appeal to a broad readership including both researchers and practitioners interested in gaining exposure to the rapidly growing trend of multi-view data analytics and intelligent systems.

This book offers readers a comprehensive guide to the evolution of the database field from its earliest stages up to the present-and from classical relational database management systems to the current Big Data metaphor. In particular, it gathers the most significant research from the Italian database community that had relevant intersections with international projects. Big Data technology is currently dominating both the market and research. The book provides readers with a broad overview of key research efforts in modelling, querying and analysing data, which, over the last few decades, have became massive and heterogeneous areas.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th IFIP WG 2.13 International Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2021, held virtually in May 2021.The 4 full papers and 3 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 23 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics in the field of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) and discuss theories, practices, experiences, and tools on development and applications of OSS systems, with a specific focus on two aspects:(a) the development of open source systems and the underlying technical, social, and economic issue, (b) the adoption of OSS solutions and the implications of such adoption both in the public and in the private sector.

This book features selected research papers presented at the International Conference on Evolutionary Computing and Mobile Sustainable Networks (ICECMSN 2020), held at the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology on 20-21 February 2020. Discussing advances in evolutionary computing technologies, including swarm intelligence algorithms and other evolutionary algorithm paradigms which are emerging as widely accepted descriptors for mobile sustainable networks virtualization, optimization and automation, this book is a valuable resource for researchers in the field of evolutionary computing and mobile sustainable networks.

This book collects selected papers from the 6th Conference on Signal and Information Processing, Networking and Computers, held in Guiyang, China, on August 13 - 16, 2019. Focusing on the latest advances in information theory, communication systems, computer science, aerospace technologies, big data and other related technologies, it offers a valuable resource for researchers and industrial practitioners alike.

This book provides a detailed theoretical background of Logistics 4.0 using real-world examples and case studies and proposes a methodological framework to understand the technological revolutions happening in the present day from the perspective of logistics management. With the fourth industrial revolution, new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 3D printers and the Internet of Things started to take greater prominence in the world of business. One of the sectors most affected by changes brought on by this Industry 4.0 is logistics, which has given rise to the concept of Logistics 4.0. Covering a wide range of topics on Logistics 4.0, such as warehousing, big data, 3D printing, robotics and cloud computing, this book would be a valuable read for those involved in logistics management, academics and students in the areas of supply chain management, logistics, industry 4, and big data. .

This book proposes new technologies and discusses future solutions for ICT design infrastructures, as reflected in high-quality papers presented at the 5th International Conference on ICT for Sustainable Development (ICT4SD 2020), held in Goa, India, on 23-24 July 2020. The conference provided a valuable forum for cutting-edge research discussions among pioneering researchers, scientists, industrial engineers, and students from all around the world. Bringing together experts from different countries, the book explores a range of central issues from an international perspective.

The motivation of this edited book is to generate an understanding about information, related concepts and the roles they play in the modern, technology permeated world. In order to achieve our goal, we observe how information is understood in domains, such as cosmology, physics, biology, neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, the Internet, big data, information society, or philosophy. Together, these observations form an integrated view so that readers can better understand this exciting building-block of modern-day society. On the surface, information is a relatively straightforward and intuitive concept. Underneath, however, information is a relatively versatile and mysterious entity. For instance, the way a physicist looks at information is not necessarily the same way as that of a biologist, a neuroscientist, a computer scientist, or a philosopher. Actually, when it comes to information, it is common that each field has its domain specific views, motivations, interpretations, definitions, methods, technologies, and challenges. With contributions by authors from a wide range of backgrounds, Understanding Information: From the Big Bang to Big Data will appeal to readers interested in the impact of 'information' on modern-day life from a variety of perspectives.

This book introduces new models based on R-calculus and theories of belief revision for dealing with large and changing data. It extends R-calculus from first-order logic to propositional logic, description logics, modal logic and logic programming, and from minimal change semantics to subset minimal change, pseudo-subformula minimal change and deduction-based minimal change (the last two minimal changes are newly defined). And it proves soundness and completeness theorems with respect to the minimal changes in these logics. To make R-calculus computable, an approximate R-calculus is given which uses finite injury priority method in recursion theory. Moreover, two applications of R-calculus are given to default theory and semantic inheritance networks. This book offers a rich blend of theory and practice. It is suitable for students, researchers and practitioners in the field of logic. Also it is very useful for all those who are interested in data, digitization and correctness and consistency of information, in modal logics, non monotonic logics, decidable/undecidable logics, logic programming, description logics, default logics and semantic inheritance networks.

This open access book explores the dataspace paradigm as a best-effort approach to data management within data ecosystems. It establishes the theoretical foundations and principles of real-time linked dataspaces as a data platform for intelligent systems. The book introduces a set of specialized best-effort techniques and models to enable loose administrative proximity and semantic integration for managing and processing events and streams. The book is divided into five major parts: Part I "Fundamentals and Concepts" details the motivation behind and core concepts of real-time linked dataspaces, and establishes the need to evolve data management techniques in order to meet the challenges of enabling data ecosystems for intelligent systems within smart environments. Further, it explains the fundamental concepts of dataspaces and the need for specialization in the processing of dynamic real-time data. Part II "Data Support Services" explores the design and evaluation of critical services, including catalog, entity management, query and search, data service discovery, and human-in-the-loop. In turn, Part III "Stream and Event Processing Services" addresses the design and evaluation of the specialized techniques created for real-time support services including complex event processing, event service composition, stream dissemination, stream matching, and approximate semantic matching. Part IV "Intelligent Systems and Applications" explores the use of real-time linked dataspaces within real-world smart environments. In closing, Part V "Future Directions" outlines future research challenges for dataspaces, data ecosystems, and intelligent systems. Readers will gain a detailed understanding of how the dataspace paradigm is now being used to enable data ecosystems for intelligent systems within smart environments. The book covers the fundamental theory, the creation of new techniques needed for support services, and lessons learned from real-world intelligent systems and applications focused on sustainability. Accordingly, it will benefit not only researchers and graduate students in the fields of data management, big data, and IoT, but also professionals who need to create advanced data management platforms for intelligent systems, smart environments, and data ecosystems.

This book includes recent research works on how business around the world affected by the time of COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of recent technological developments has had a tremendous impact on how we manage disasters. These developments have changed how countries and governments collect information. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced online service companies to maintain and build relationships with consumers when their world turns. Businesses are now facing tension between generating sales during a period of severe economic hardship and respect for threats to life and livelihoods that have changed consumer preferences.

This book involves ideas/results from the topics of mathematical, information, and data sciences, in connection with the main research interests of Professor Pardo that can be summarized as Information Theory with Applications to Statistical Inference. This book is a tribute to Professor Leandro Pardo, who has chaired the Department of Statistics and OR of the Complutense University in Madrid, and he has been also President of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research. In this way, the contributions have been structured into three parts, which often overlap to a greater or lesser extent, namely Trends in Mathematical Sciences (Part I) Trends in Information Sciences (Part II) Trends in Data Sciences (Part III) The contributions gathered in this book have offered either new developments from a theoretical and/or computational and/or applied point of view, or reviews of recent literature of outstanding developments. They have been applied through nice examples in climatology, chemistry, economics, engineering, geology, health sciences, physics, pandemics, and socioeconomic indicators. Consequently, the intended audience of this book is mainly statisticians, mathematicians, computer scientists, and so on, but users of these disciplines as well as experts in the involved applications may certainly find this book a very interesting read.

This book presents a collection of state-of-the-art approaches for deep-learning-based biomedical and health-related applications. The aim of healthcare informatics is to ensure high-quality, efficient health care, and better treatment and quality of life by efficiently analyzing abundant biomedical and healthcare data, including patient data and electronic health records (EHRs), as well as lifestyle problems. In the past, it was common to have a domain expert to develop a model for biomedical or health care applications; however, recent advances in the representation of learning algorithms (deep learning techniques) make it possible to automatically recognize the patterns and represent the given data for the development of such model. This book allows new researchers and practitioners working in the field to quickly understand the best-performing methods. It also enables them to compare different approaches and carry forward their research in an important area that has a direct impact on improving the human life and health. It is intended for researchers, academics, industry professionals, and those at technical institutes and R&D organizations, as well as students working in the fields of machine learning, deep learning, biomedical engineering, health informatics, and related fields.

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.

Recent Advances in Chaotic Systems and Synchronization: From Theory to Real World Applications is a major reference for scientists and engineers interested in applying new computational and mathematical tools for solving complex problems related to modeling, analyzing and synchronizing chaotic systems. Furthermore, it offers an array of new, real-world applications in the field. Written by eminent scientists in the field of control theory and nonlinear systems from 19 countries (Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, France, Greece, India, Italia, Iran, Japan, Mexico, and more), this book covers the latest advances in chaos theory, along with the efficiency of novel synchronization approaches. Readers will find the fundamentals and algorithms related to the analysis and synchronization of chaotic systems, along with key applications, including electronic design, text and image encryption, and robot control and tracking.

This volume comprises the proceedings of ICITCS 2020. It aims to provide a snapshot of the latest issues encountered in IT convergence and security. The book explores how IT convergence and security is core to most current research, industrial and commercial activities. Topics covered in this volume include machine learning & deep learning, communication and signal processing, computer vision and applications, future network technology, artificial intelligence and robotics, software engineering and knowledge engineering, intelligent vehicular networking and applications, healthcare and wellness, web technology and applications, internet of things, and security & privacy. Through this volume, readers will gain an understanding of the current state-of-the-art information strategies and technologies in IT convergence and security. The book will be of use to researchers in academia, industry and other research institutes focusing on IT convergence and security.

This new volume explores a plethora of blockchain-based solutions for big data and IoT applications, looking at advances in real-world applications in several sectors, including higher education, cybersecurity, agriculture, business and management, healthcare and biomedical science, construction and project management, smart city development, and others. Chapters explore emerging technology to combat the ever-increasing threat of security to computer systems and offer new architectural solutions for problems encountered in data management and security. The chapters help to provide a high level of understanding of various blockchain algorithms along with the necessary tools and techniques. The novel architectural solutions in the deployment of blockchain presented here are the core of the book.