What we earn today is worth less tomorrow. So, what can we do about it? How can we future-proof our finances? The answer is simple: invest.

When it comes to investing you might have a few assumptions (you have to be rich to invest, it's too risky, you need to be a 'professional'), are bombarded with financial jargon (index, funds, stocks, shares) or are not sure where to start. Kalpana Fitzpatrick, financial journalist and money expert, will help you take control of your finances with this easy-to-understand guide to investing.

Invest Now is an essential book that will teach you:

• What investing is and why you need to care about it
• How investing works and why cash is making you 'poor'
• If investing is for you and how to get started
• How to ethically invest to save the planet
• Break down financial jargon, bust myths and so much more.

Whether you want to make a big purchase or retire early, investing will help you achieve your financial dreams.

Over the last decade, a great amount of effort and resources have been invested in the development of Semantic Web Service (SWS) frameworks. Numerous description languages, frameworks, tools, and matchmaking and composition algorithms have been proposed. Nevertheless, when faced with a real-world problem, it is still very hard to decide which of these different approaches to use.

In this book, the editors present an overall overview and comparison of the main current evaluation initiatives for SWS. The presentation is divided into four parts, each referring to one of the evaluation initiatives. Part I covers the long-established first two tracks of the Semantic Service Selection (S3) Contest - the OWL-S matchmaker evaluation and the SAWSDL matchmaker evaluation. Part II introduces the new S3 Jena Geography Dataset (JGD) cross evaluation contest. Part III presents the Semantic Web Service Challenge. Lastly, Part IV reports on the semantic aspects of the Web Service Challenge. The introduction to each part provides an overview of the evaluation initiative and overall results for its latest evaluation workshops. The following chapters in each part, written by the participants, detail their approaches, solutions and lessons learned.This book is aimed at two different types of readers. Researchers on SWS technology receive an overview of existing approaches in SWS with a particular focus on evaluation approaches; potential users of SWS technologies receive a comprehensive summary of the respective strengths and weaknesses of current systems and thus guidance on factors that play a role in evaluation.

This book proposes dynamic wavelength and bandwidth allocation (DWBA), a hybrid of time-division multiplexing (TDM) and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), which offers a solution for service providers faced with multiservice networks. It discusses different models, architectures and implementations and evaluates their performance.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of numerous physically distributed autonomous devices used for sensing and monitoring the physical and/or environmental conditions. A WSN uses a gateway that provides wireless connectivity to the wired world as well as distributed networks. There are many open problems related to Ad-Hoc networks and its applications. Looking at the expansion of the cellular infrastructure, Ad-Hoc network may be acting as the basis of the 4th generation wireless technology with the new paradigm of 'anytime, anywhere communications'. To realize this, the real challenge would be the security, authorization and management issues of the large scale WSNs. This book is an edited volume in the broad area of WSNs. The book covers various chapters like Multi-Channel Wireless Sensor Networks, its Coverage, Connectivity as well as Deployment. It covers comparison of various communication protocols and algorithms such as MANNET, ODMRP and ADMR Protocols for Ad hoc Multicasting, Location Based Coordinated Routing Protocol and other Token based group local mutual exclusion Algorithms. The book also covers a chapter on Extended Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (EAODV) routing protocol based on Distributed Minimum Transmission Multicast Routing (DMTMR). One chapter is dedicated to OCDMA and its future application and another chapter covers development of Home Automation System using SWN.

The rapid development and expansion of Web-based technologies has vast potential implications for the processes of teaching and learning world-wide. Technological advancements of Web-based applications strike at the base of the education spectrum; however, the scope of experimentation and discussion on this topic has continuously been narrow.

Today’s publishing infrastructure is rapidly changing. As electronic journals, digital libraries, collaboratories, logic servers, and other knowledge infrastructures emerge on the internet, the key aspects of this transformation need to be identified. Here, the author details the implications that this transformation is having on the creation, dissemination and organization of academic knowledge. The author shows that many established publishing principles need to be given up in order to facilitate this transformation. The text provides valuable insights for knowledge managers, designers of internet-based knowledge infrastructures, and professionals in the publishing industry. Researchers will find the scenarios and implications for research processes stimulating and thought-provoking.

Just like the industrial society of the last century depended on natural resources, today s society depends on information and its exchange.

Semantic Web technologies address the problem of information complexity by providing advanced support for representing and processing distributed information, while peer-to-peer technologies address issues of system complexity by allowing flexible and decentralized information storage and processing. Systems that are based on Semantic Web and peer-to-peer technologies promise to combine the advantages of the two mechanisms. A peer-to-peer style architecture for the Semantic Web will avoid both physical and semantic bottlenecks that limit information and knowledge exchange.

Staab and Stuckenschmidt structured the selected contributions into four parts: Part I, "Data Storage and Access," prepares the semantic foundation, i.e. data modelling and querying in a flexible and yet scalable manner. These foundations allow for dealing with the organization of information at the individual peers. Part II, "Querying the Network," considers the routing of queries, as well as continuous queries and personalized queries under the conditions of the permanently changing topological structure of a peer-to-peer network. Part III, "Semantic Integration," deals with the mapping of heterogeneous data representations. Finally Part IV, "Methodology and Systems," reports experiences from case studies and sample applications.

The overall result is a state-of-the-art description of the potential of Semantic Web and peer-to-peer technologies for information sharing and knowledge management when applied jointly. It serves researchers in academia and industry as an excellent and lasting reference and source of inspiration.

Web Systems Design and Online Consumer Behavior takes and interdisciplinary approach toward systems design in the online environment by providing an understanding of how consumers behave while shopping online and how certain system design elements may impact consumers' perceptions, attitude, intentions, and actual behavior. This book contains theoretical and empirical research from expert scholars in a number of areas including communications, psychology, marketing and advertising, and information systems. This book provides an integrated look at the subject area as described above to further our understanding of the linkage among various disciplines inherently connected with one another in electronic commerce.

In the foreword to this volume of conference proceedings for IFIP Working Group 8.4, it is appropriate to review the wider organization to which the Working Group belongs. The International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) is a non-governmental, non-profit umbrella organization for national societies working in the field of information processing that was established in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO. IFIP's mission is to be the leading, truly international, apolitical organization which encourages and assists in the development, exploitation and application of Information Technology for the benefit of all people. At the heart of IFIP lie its Technical Committees that, between them, count on the active participation of some two thousand people world-wide. These Groups work in a variety of ways to share experience and to develop their specialised knowledge. Technical Committees include: TC 1. Foundations of Computer Science; TC 2: Software: Theory and Practice; TC 3: Education; TC 6: Communication Systems; TC 7: System Modelling and Optimization; TC 9: Relationship between Computers and Society; TC 11: Security and Protection in Information Processing Systems; TC 12: Artificial Intelligence and TC 13: Human-Computer Interaction. The IFIP website www.ifip.org) has further details. Technical Committee 8 (TC8) is concerned with Information Systems in organisations. Within TC8 there are different Working Groups focusing on particular aspects of Information Systems.

This book introduces new trends of theory and practice of information technologies in tourism. The book does not handle only the fundamental contribution, but also discusses innovative and emerging technologies to promote and develop new generation tourism informatics theory and their applications. Some chapters are concerned with data analysis, web technologies, social media and their case studies. Travel information on the web provided by travelers is very useful for other travelers make their travel plan. A chapter in this book proposes a method for interactive retrieval of information on accommodation facilities to support travelling customers in their travel preparations. Also an adaptive user interface for personalized transportation guidance system is proposed. Another chapter in this book shows a novel support system for the collaborative tourism planning by using the case reports that are collected via Internet. Also, a system for recommending hotels for the users is proposed and evaluated. Other chapters are concerned with recommendation, personalization and other emerging technologies.

The requirement of causality in system theory is inevitably accompanied by the appearance of certain mathematical operations, namely the Riesz proj- tion,theHilberttransform,andthespectralfactorizationmapping.Aclassical exampleillustratingthisisthedeterminationoftheso-calledWiener?lter(the linear, minimum means square error estimation ?lter for stationary stochastic sequences [88]). If the ?lter is not required to be causal, the transfer function of the Wiener ?lter is simply given by H(?)=? (?)/? (?),where ? (?) xy xx xx and ? (?) are certain given functions. However, if one requires that the - xy timation ?lter is causal, the transfer function of the optimal ?lter is given by 1 ? (?) xy H(?)= P ,?? (??,?] . + [? ] (?) [? ] (?) xx + xx? Here [? ] and [? ] represent the so called spectral factors of ? ,and xx + xx? xx P is the so called Riesz projection. Thus, compared to the non-causal ?lter, + two additional operations are necessary for the determination of the causal ?lter, namely the spectral factorization mapping ? ? ([? ] ,[? ] ),and xx xx + xx? the Riesz projection P .

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental security of Industrial Control Systems (ICSs), including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and touching on cyber-physical systems in general. Careful attention is given to providing the reader with clear and comprehensive background and reference material for each topic pertinent to ICS security. This book offers answers to such questions as: Which specific operating and security issues may lead to a loss of efficiency and operation? What methods can be used to monitor and protect my system? How can I design my system to reduce threats?This book offers chapters on ICS cyber threats, attacks, metrics, risk, situational awareness, intrusion detection, and security testing, providing an advantageous reference set for current system owners who wish to securely configure and operate their ICSs. This book is appropriate for non-specialists as well. Tutorial information is provided in two initial chapters and in the beginnings of other chapters as needed. The book concludes with advanced topics on ICS governance, responses to attacks on ICS, and future security of the Internet of Things.

Jerome McGann has been at the forefront of the digital revolution in the humanities. His pioneering critical projects on the World Wide Web have redefined traditional notions about interpreting literature. In this trailblazing book, McGann explores the profound implications digital media have for the core critical tasks of the humanities.Drawing on his work as editor of the acclaimed hypertext project The Rossetti Archive, he sets the foundation for a new critical practice for the digital age. Digital media, he demonstrates, can do much more than organize access to great works of literature and art. Beyond their acknowledged editorial and archival capabilities, digital media are also critical tools of unprecedented power. In McGann’s practical vision, digital tools give scholars a flexible, dynamic means for interpreting expressive works—especially those that combine text and image. Radiant Textuality demonstrates eloquently how new technologies can deepen our understanding of complex, multi-layered works of the human imagination in ways never before thought possible.

With the emergence of cloud computing, traditional approaches to software engineering must be adapted in order to take full advantage of the benefits promised by cloud technologies.

This timely and authoritative text/reference presents the latest research on "Software Engineering Frameworks for the Cloud Computing Paradigm," drawn from an international selection of researchers and practitioners. The book offers both a discussion of relevant software engineering approaches and practical guidance on enterprise-wide software deployment in the cloud environment, together with real-world case studies.

Topics and features: presents the state of the art in software engineering approaches for developing cloud-suitable applications; discusses the impact of the cloud computing paradigm on software engineering, including the semantic web; offers guidance and best practices for students and practitioners of cloud-based applications architecture; examines the stages of the software development lifecycle, with a focus on the requirements engineering and testing of cloud-based applications; reviews the efficiency and performance of cloud-based applications; explores feature-driven and cloud-aided software design, presenting strategies for cloud adoption and migration; provides relevant theoretical frameworks, practical approaches and current and future research directions.

This practical and clearly-structured volume is an ideal self-study primer for students of cloud computing and software engineering. Software engineers, application developers and IT infrastructure managers will also find the work to be an invaluable reference.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 2008 IFIP Conference on Wireless Sensors and Actor Networks held in Ottawa, Canada on July 14-15, 2008.

The IFIP series publishes state-of-the-art results in the sciences and technologies of information and communication. The scope of the series includes: foundations of computer science; software theory and practice; education; computer applications in technology; communication systems; systems modeling and optimization; information systems; computers and society; computer systems technology; security and protection in information processing systems; artificial intelligence; and human-computer interaction. Proceedings and post-proceedings of refereed international conferences in computer science and interdisciplinary fields are featured. These results often precede journal publication and represent the most current research. The principal aim of the IFIP series is to encourage education and the dissemination and exchange of information about all aspects of computing.

The book provides a comprehensive investigation of the performance and problems of the TCP/IP protocol stack, when data is transmitted over GSM, GPRS and UMTS. It gives an introduction to the protocols used for Internet access today, and also the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). The basics of GSM, GPRS and UMTS are given, which are necessary for understanding the main topic, TCP performance over GSM, GPRS and UMTS. We describe at length the problems that TCP has when operating over a mobile radio link, and what has been proposed to remedy these problems. We derive the optimum TCP packet length for maximum data throughput on wireless networks, analytically and by simulation. Results on the throughput and various other parameters of TCP over mobile networks are given. This book gives valuable advice to network operators and application programmers to maximize data throughput, and which protocols, transmission modes, and coding schemes to use and which to avoid.

Over the past several years, a great deal of research has been devoted to the use of information technology by small businesses. One technological tool now used to boost company success is Web presence enhancement in alignment with business strategy. ""Effective Web Presence Solutions for Small Businesses: Strategies for Successful Implementation"" is the first book to provide small businesses with a holistic approach to implementing their Web presence through identification of Web site content that matches their business strategy. A valuable read for small business owners as well as academicians and researchers, this book connects the various issues involved in the planning and execution of successful Web sites for small businesses.

This book highlights the need for an efficient Handover Decision (HD) mechanism to perform switches from one network to another and to provide unified and continuous mobile services that include seamless connectivity and ubiquitous service access. The author shows how the HD involves efficiently combining handover initiation and network selection process. The author describes how the network selection decision is a challenging task that is a central component to making HD for any mobile user in a heterogeneous environment that involves a number of static and dynamic parameters. The author also discusses prevailing technical challenges like Dynamic Spectrum Allocation (DSA) methods, spectrum sensing, cooperative communications, cognitive network architecture protocol design, cognitive network security challenges and dynamic adaptation algorithms for cognitive system and the evolving behavior of systems in general. The book allows the reader to optimize the sensing time for maximizing the spectrum utilization, improve the lifetime of the cognitive radio network (CRN) using active scan spectrum sensing techniques, analyze energy efficiency of CRN, find a secondary user spectrum allocation, perform dynamic handovers, and use efficient data communication in the cognitive networks. Identifies energy efficient spectrum sensing techniques for Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN); Shows how to maximize the energy capacity by minimizing the outage probability; Features end-of-chapter summaries, performance measures, and case studies.

As virtual reality approaches mainstream consumer use, new research and innovations in the field have impacted how we view and can use this technology across a wide range of industries. Advancements in this technology have led to recent breakthroughs in sound, perception, and visual processing that take virtual reality to new dimensions. As such, research is needed to support the adoption of these new methods and applications. Cases on Immersive Virtual Reality Techniques is an essential reference source that discusses new applications of virtual reality and how they can be integrated with immersive techniques and computer resources. Featuring research on topics such as 3D modeling, cognitive load, and motion cueing, this book is ideally designed for educators, academicians, researchers, and students seeking coverage on the applications of collaborative virtual environments.

The unprecedented growth in the range of multimedia services offered these days by modern telecommunication systems has been made possible only because of the advancements in signal processing technologies and algorithms. In the area of telecommunications, application of signal processing allows for new generations of systems to achieve performance close to theoretical limits, while in the area of multimedia, signal processing the underlying technology making possible realization of such applications that not so long ago were considered just a science fiction or were not even dreamed about. We all learnt to adopt those achievements very quickly, but often the research enabling their introduction takes many years and a lot of efforts. This book presents a group of invited contributions, some of which have been based on the papers presented at the International Symposium on DSP for Communication Systems held in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, Australia, in December 2003. Part 1 of the book deals with applications of signal processing to transform what we hear or see to the form that is most suitable for transmission or storage for a future retrieval. The first three chapters in this part are devoted to processing of speech and other audio signals. The next two chapters consider image coding and compression, while the last chapter of this part describes classification of video sequences in the MPEG domain.

This study, written in the context of its first publication in 1970, discusses and documents the invasion of privacy by the corporation and the social institution in the search for efficiency in information processing. Discussing areas such as the impact of the computer on administration, privacy and the storage on information, the authors assess the technical and social feasibility of constructing integrated data banks to cover the details of populations. The book was hugely influential both in terms of scholarship and legislation, and the years following saw the introduction of the Data Protection Act of 1984, which was then consolidated by the Act of 1998. The topics under discussion remain of great concern to the public in our increasingly web-based world, ensuring the continued relevance of this title to academics and students with an interest in data protection and public privacy.

Social network analysis has created novel opportunities within the field of data science. The complexity of these networks requires new techniques to optimize the extraction of useful information. Graph Theoretic Approaches for Analyzing Large-Scale Social Networks is a pivotal reference source for the latest academic research on emerging algorithms and methods for the analysis of social networks. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as influence maximization, probabilistic exploration, and distributed memory, this book is ideally designed for academics, graduate students, professionals, and practitioners actively involved in the field of data science. The many academic areas covered in this publication include, but are not limited to: Content Specific Modeling Distributed Memory Graph Mining Influence Maximization Information Spread Control Link Prediction Probabilistic Exploration