This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Privacy in Statistical Databases, PSD 2014, held in Ibiza, Spain in September 2014 under the sponsorship of the UNESCO chair in Data Privacy. The 27 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 41 submissions. The scope of the conference is on following topics: tabular data protection, microdata masking, protection using privacy models, synthetic data, record linkage, remote access, privacy-preserving protocols, and case studies.

Now in paperback for the first time, Social Movements and their Technologies explores the interplay between social movements and their 'liberated technologies'. It analyzes the rise of low-power radio stations and radical internet projects ('emancipatory communication practices') as a political subject, focusing on the sociological and cultural processes at play. It provides an overview of the relationship between social movements and technology, and investigates what is behind the communication infrastructure that made possible the main protest events of the past fifteen years. In doing so, Stefania Milan illustrates how contemporary social movements organize in order to create autonomous alternatives to communication systems and networks, and how they contribute to change the way people communicate in daily life, as well as try to change communication policy from the grassroots. She situates these efforts in a historical context in order to show the origins of contemporary communication activism, and its linkages to media reform campaigns and policy advocacy.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2014, held in Dublin, Ireland, in September 2014. The 11 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 20 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: social media; review and analysis; engaging citizens online; and software platforms and evaluation.

Handbook of Usability and User Experience: Methods and Techniques is concerned with emerging usability and user experience in design concepts, theories and applications of human factors knowledge focusing on the discovery, design and understanding of human interaction and usability issues with products and systems for their improvement. This volume presents methods and techniques to design products, systems and environments with good usability, accessibility and user satisfaction. It introduces the concepts of usability and its association with user experience, and discusses methods and models for usability and UX. It also introduces relevant cognitive, cultural, social and experiential individual differences, which are essential for understanding, measuring and utilizing these differences in the study of usability and interaction design. In addition, the book discusses the use of usability assessment to improve healthcare, the relationship between usability and user experience in the built environment, the state-of-the-art review of usability and UX in the digital world, usability and UX in the current context, and emerging technologies. We hope that this first of two volumes will be helpful to a large number of professionals, students and practitioners who strive to incorporate usability and user experience principles and knowledge in a variety of applications. We trust that the knowledge presented in this volume will ultimately lead to an increased appreciation of the benefits of usability and incorporate the principles of usability and user experience knowledge to improve the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of consumer products, systems and environments in which we live.

"Data Security Breaches and Privacy in Europe" aims to consider data protection and cybersecurity issues; more specifically, it aims to provide a fruitful discussion on data security breaches. A detailed analysis of the European Data Protection framework will be examined. In particular, the Data Protection Directive 95/45/EC, the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications and the proposed changes under the Data Protection Regulation (data breach notifications) and its implications are considered. This is followed by an examination of the Directive on Attacks against information systems and a discussion of the proposed Cybersecurity Directive, considering its shortcomings and its effects. The author concludes by looking at whether a balance can be drawn by the current and proposed Data Protection framework to protect against data security breaches and considers what more needs to be achieved.

The newest communication technologies are profoundly changing the world's politics, economies, and cultures, but the specific implications of online game worlds remain mysterious. "The Virtual Future" employs theories and methods from social science to explore nine very different virtual futures: "The Matrix Online," "Tabula Rasa," "Anarchy Online," "Entropia Universe," "Star Trek Online," "EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies," "World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade," and "The Chronicles of Riddick."

Each presents a different picture of how technology and society could evolve in coming centuries, but one theme runs through all of them, the attempt to escape the Earth and seek new destinies among the stars. Four decades after the last trip to the moon, a new conception of spaceflight is emerging. Rather than rockets shooting humans across vast physical distances to sterile rocks that lack the resources to sustain life, perhaps robot space probes and orbiting telescopes will glean information about the universe, that humans can then experience inside computer-generated environments much closer to home.

All nine of these fantastically rich multiplayer masterpieces have shown myriads of people that really radical alternatives to contemporary society could exist, and has served as a laboratory for examining the consequences. Each is a prototype of new social forms, a utopian subculture, and a simulation of technologies that have yet to be invented. They draw upon several different traditions of science fiction and academic philosophy, and they were created in several nations. By comparing these nine role-playing fantasies, we can better consider what kind of world we want to inhabit in the real future."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2013, held in Bristol, UK, in October 2013. The 55 revised full papers and 13 abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 108 submissions and are presented together with one invited paper. The papers cover topics such as human-robot interaction, child development and care for the elderly, as well as technical issues underlying social robotics: visual attention and processing, motor control and learning.

Today's complex, information-intensive problems often require people to work together. Mostly these tasks go far beyond simply searching together; they include information lookup, sharing, synthesis, and decision-making. In addition, they all have an end-goal that is mutually beneficial to all parties involved. Such "collaborative information seeking" (CIS) projects typically last several sessions and the participants all share an intention to contribute and benefit. Not surprisingly, these processes are highly interactive. Shah focuses on two individually well-understood notions: collaboration and information seeking, with the goal of bringing them together to show how it is a natural tendency for humans to work together on complex tasks. The first part of his book introduces the general notions of collaboration and information seeking, as well as related concepts, terminology, and frameworks; and thus provides the reader with a comprehensive treatment of the concepts underlying CIS. The second part of the book details CIS as a standalone domain. A series of frameworks, theories, and models are introduced to provide a conceptual basis for CIS. The final part describes several systems and applications of CIS, along with their broader implications on other fields such as computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and human-computer interaction (HCI). With this first comprehensive overview of an exciting new research field, Shah delivers to graduate students and researchers in academia and industry an encompassing description of the technologies involved, state-of-the-art results, and open challenges as well as research opportunities.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Multiple Access Communications, MACOM 2013, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in December 2013. The 16 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. They describe the latest advancements in the field of multiple access communications with an emphasis on OFDM techniques, channel coding, spectrum management, medium access control protocols and different aspects of wireless access networks.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Critical Information Infrastructures Security, CRITIS 2012, held in Lillehammer, Norway, in September 2012. The 23 revised full papers were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 67 submissions. The papers are structured in the following topical sections: intrusion management; smart metering and grid, analysis and modeling; SCADA; cyber issues; CI analysis; CIP sectors; CI assessment; and threat modeling.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Transport Systems Telematics, TST 2013, held in Katowice-Ustron, Poland, in October 2013. The 58 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. They provide an overview of solutions being developed in the field of intelligent transportation systems, and include theoretical and case studies in the countries of conference participants.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed, selected papers on Cyber Security and Privacy EU Forum 2013, held in Belgium, in April 2013. The 14 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on cloud computing, security and privacy management, security and privacy technology, security and privacy policy.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management 2014, held as part of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2014, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece in June 2014, jointly with 13 other thematically conferences. The total of 1476 papers and 220 posters presented at the HCII 2014 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4766 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of Human-Computer Interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The 65 papers included in this volume are organized in topical sections on modeling posture and motion; anthropometry, design and ergonomics; ergonomics and human modeling in work and everyday life environments; advances in healthcare; rehabilitation applications; risk, safety and emergency.

The four-volume set LNCS 8513-8516 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2014, held as part of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2014, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece in June 2014, jointly with 14 other thematically similar conferences.

The total of 1476 papers and 220 posters presented at the HCII 2014 conferences was carefully reviewed and selected from 4766 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers thoroughly cover the entire field of human-computer interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The total of 251 contributions included in the UAHCI proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this four-volume set. The 60 papers included in this volume are organized in the following topical sections: web accessibility; design for all in the built environment; global access infrastructures and user experiences in universal access.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 8th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context, CONTEXT 2013, held in Annecy, France, in October/November 2013. The 23 full papers and 9 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. In addition the book contains two keynote speeches and 9 poster papers. They cover cutting-edge results from the wide range of disciplines concerned with context, including: Cognitive Sciences (Linguistics, Psychology, Computer Science, Neuroscience), and computer science (artificial intelligence, logics, ubiquitous and pervasive computing, context-awareness systems), and the Social Sciences and Organizational Sciences, as well as the Humanities and all application areas, including Medicine and Law.

This two volume set LNAI 8102 and LNAI 8103 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2013, held in Busan, South Korea, in September 2013. The 147 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 184 submissions. The papers discuss various topics from intelligent robotics, automation and mechatronics with particular emphasis on technical challenges associated with varied applications such as biomedical application, industrial automation, surveillance and sustainable mobility.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Provable Security, ProvSec 2013, held in Melaka, Malaysia, in October 2013. The 18 full papers presented together with 1 invited talk were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. The papers cover the following topics: key exchange protocols, security models, signature and signcryption schemes, authenticated encryption, theory, and public key encryption.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the workshops held withthe 17th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, ICIAP 2013, held in Naples, Italy, in September 2013. The proceedings include papers from the five individual workshops focusing on topics of interest to the pattern recognition, image analysis, and computer vision communities, exploring emergent research directions or spotlight cross-disciplinary links with related fields and / or application areas."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications, SGDA 2013, held in Trondheim, Norway, in September 2013. The 32 papers (23 full papers, 9 short papers/posters and 2 invited keynotes) presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on games for health, games for education and training, games for other purposes, game design and theories, gaming interface, policy matters.

This book examines the struggles over technology's use in education, digging into what the purpose of education is, how we should achieve it, who the stakeholders are, and whose voices win out. Drawing on theoretical and empirical work, it lays bare the messy realities of technology use in education and their implications for contemporary society.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th German Conference on Multiagent System Technologies, MATES 2013, held in Koblenz, Germany, in September 2013. The 29 revised full papers and 3 keynote talks presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers cover a broad area of topics of interest ranging from issues of agent-based coordination to simulation to negotiation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction, SBP 2014, held in Washington, DC, USA, in April 2014. The 51 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 101 submissions. The SBP conference provides a forum for researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and government agencies to exchange ideas on current challenges in social computing, behavioral-cultural modeling and prediction, and on state-of-the-art methods and best practices being adopted to tackle these challenges. The topical areas addressed by the papers are social and behavioral sciences, health sciences, military science, and information science.

The four-volume set LNCS 8517, 8518, 8519 and 8520 constitutes the proceedings of the Third International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability, DUXU 2014, held as part of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2014, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece in June 2014, jointly with 13 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1476 papers and 220 posters presented at the HCII 2014 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4766 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of Human-Computer Interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The total of 256 contributions included in the DUXU proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this four-volume set. The 69 papers included in this volume are organized in topical sections on design for health; design for reading and learning; design for mobility, transport and safety; design for rural, low literacy and developing communities; design for environment and sustainability; design for human-computer symbiosis.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10 th International Conference on Mobile Web Information Systems, MobiWIS 2013, held in Paphos, Cyprus, in August 2013. The 25 papers (20 full research papers, 4 demonstration papers, and one abstract of the keynote speech) presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers cover the following topics related to mobile Web and Information Systems (WISs), such as mobile Web services, location-awareness, design and development, social computing and society, development infrastructures and services, SOA and trust, UI migration and human factors, and Web of Things and networks.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 9th European Workshop, EuroPKI 2012, held in Pisa, Italy, in September 2012. The 12 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 30 submissions and cover topics such as Cryptographic Schemas and Protocols, Public Key Infrastructure, Wireless Authentication and Revocation, Certificate and Trusted Computing, and Digital Structures.