This book provides a complete overview of significant design challenges in respect to circuit miniaturization and power reduction of the neural recording system, along with circuit topologies, architecture trends, and (post-silicon) circuit optimization algorithms. The introduced novel circuits for signal conditioning, quantization, and classification, as well as system configurations focus on optimized power-per-area performance, from the spatial resolution (i.e. number of channels), feasible wireless data bandwidth and information quality to the delivered power of implantable system.

This book is a valuable resource for the increasing body of researchers and practitioners in the field of geospatial technologies. Written by leading researchers and experts it is designed in such a way that technical achievements and challenges of geospatial computing applications are followed by various applications developed for society. As such, they serve as a bridge between technologists and solution developers, which is critical in the context of developing countries. There have been significant advances in geospatial technologies in India in the last decade, including advances in spatial data infrastructures, geocomputation and spatial databases, and innovative applications in natural resource development. Ranging from LIDAR standards, to data integration using ontologies, and mobile computing, such progress enhances the utility of the technology for both urban and rural development. This book discusses these achievements and considers the way forward.

Usability has become increasingly important as an essential part of the design and development of software and systems for all sectors of society, business, industry, government and education, as well as a topic of research. Today, we can safely say that, in many parts of the world, information technology and communications is or is becoming a central force in revolutionising the way that we all live and how our societies function. IFIP's mission states clearly that it "encourages and assists in the development, exploitation and application of information technology for the benefit of all people." The question that must be considered now is how much attention has been given to the usability of the IT-based systems that we use in our work and daily lives. There is much evidence to indicate that the real interests and needs of people have not yet been embraced in a substantial way by IT decision makers and when developing and implementing the IT systems that shape our lives, both as private individuals and at work. But some headway has been made. Three years ago, the IFIP Technical Committee on Human Computer Interaction (IFIP TC13) gave the subject of usability its top priority for future work in advancing HCI within the international community. This Usability Stream of the IFIP World Computer Congress is a result of this initiative. It provides a showcase on usability involving some practical business solutions and experiences, and some research findings."

The e-commerce revolution has allowed many organizations around the world to become more effective and efficient in managing their resources. Through the use of e-commerce many businesses can now cut the cost of doing business with their customers in a speed that could only be imagined a decade ago. However, doing business on the Internet has opened up business to additional vulnerabilities and misuse. It has been estimated that the cost of misuse and criminal activities related to e-commerce now exceeds 10 billion dollars per year, and many experts predict that this number will increase in the future. IT Solutions Series: E-Commerce Security: Advice from Experts provides insight and practical knowledge obtained from industry leaders regarding the overall successful management of e-commerce practices and solutions.

This text helps the reader generate clear, effective documentation that is tailored to the information requirements of the end-user. Written for technical writers and their managers, quality assurance experts, and software engineers, the book describes a user-centered information design method (UCID) that should help ensure documentation conveys significant information for the user. The UCID shows how to: integrate the four major information components of a software system - user interface labels, messages, online and printed documentation; make sure these elements work together to improve usability; deploy iterative design and prototyping procedures that minimize flaws and save time and money; and guide technical writers effectively.

The debate over cyber technology has resulted in new considerations for national security operations. States find themselves in an increasingly interconnected world with a diverse threat spectrum and little understanding of how decisions are made within this amorphous domain. With The Decision to Attack, Aaron Franklin Brantly investigates how states decide to employ cyber in military and intelligence operations against other states and how rational those decisions are. In his examination, Brantly contextualizes broader cyber decision-making processes into a systematic expected utility-rational choice approach to provide a mathematical understanding of the use of cyber weapons at the state level. Topics Discussed: The Key Concepts of Cyber The Motivation and Utility for Covert Action Digital Power Anonymity and Attribution in Cyberspace Cyber and Conventional Operations: The Dynamics of Conflict Defining the Role of Intelligence in Cyberspace How actors decide to use cyber-a rational choice approach Cognitive Processes and Decision-Making in Cyberspace Finding meaning in the expected utility of international cyber conflict

Recent advances in ICT have given rise to new socially disruptive technologies: AmI and the IoT, marking a major technological change which may lead to a drastic transformation of the technological ecosystem in all its complexity, as well as to a major alteration in technology use and thus daily living. Yet no work has systematically explored AmI and the IoT as advances in science and technology (S&T) and sociotechnical visions in light of their nature, underpinning, and practices along with their implications for individual and social wellbeing and for environmental health. AmI and the IoT raise new sets of questions: In what way can we conceptualize such technologies? How can we evaluate their benefits and risks? How should science-based technology and society's politics relate? Are science-based technology and society converging in new ways? It is with such questions that this book is concerned. Positioned within the research field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), which encourages analyses whose approaches are drawn from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, this book amalgamates an investigation of AmI and the IoT technologies based on a unique approach to cross-disciplinary integration; their ethical, social, cultural, political, and environmental effects; and a philosophical analysis and evaluation of the implications of such effects. An interdisciplinary approach is indeed necessary to understand the complex issue of scientific and technological innovations that S&T are not the only driving forces of the modern, high-tech society, as well as to respond holistically, knowledgeably, reflectively, and critically to the most pressing issues and significant challenges of the modern world. This book is the first systematic study on how AmI and the IoT applications of scientific discovery link up with other developments in the spheres of the European society, including culture, politics, policy, ethics and ecological philosophy. It situates AmI and the IoT developments and innovations as modernist science-based technology enterprises in a volatile and tense relationship with an inherently contingent, heterogeneous, fractured, conflictual, plural, and reflexive postmodern social world. The issue's topicality results in a book of interest to a wide readership in science, industry, politics, and policymaking, as well as of recommendation to anyone interested in learning the sociology, philosophy, and history of AmI and the IoT technologies, or to those who would like to better understand some of the ethical, environmental, social, cultural, and political dilemmas to what has been labeled the technologies of the 21st century.

It was a pleasure to provide an introduction to a new volume on user experience evaluation in games. The scope, depth, and diversity of the work here is amazing. It attests to the growing popularity of games and the increasing importance developing a range of theories, methods, and scales to evaluate them. This evolution is driven by the cost and complexity of games being developed today. It is also driven by the need to broaden the appeal of games. Many of the approaches described here are enabled by new tools and techniques. This book (along with a few others) represents a watershed in game evaluation and understanding. The eld of game evaluation has truly "come of age." The broader eld of HCI can begin to look toward game evaluation for fresh, critical, and sophisticated thi- ing about design evaluation and product development. They can also look to games for groundbreaking case studies of evaluation of products. I'll brie y summarize each chapter below and provide some commentary. In conclusion, I will mention a few common themes and offer some challenges. Discussion In Chapter 1, User Experience Evaluation in Entertainment, Bernhaupt gives an overview and presents a general framework on methods currently used for user experience evaluation. The methods presented in the following chapters are s- marized and thus allow the reader to quickly assess the right set of methods that will help to evaluate the game under development.

The term "haptics" refers to the science of sensing and manipulation through touch. Multiple disciplines such as biomechanics, psychophysics, robotics, neuroscience, and software engineering converge to support haptics, and generally, haptic research is done by three communities: the robotics community, the human computer interface community, and the virtual reality community.

This book is different from any other book that has looked at haptics. The authors treat haptics as a new medium rather than just a domain within one of the above areas. They describe human haptic perception and interfaces and present fundamentals in haptic rendering and modeling in virtual environments. Diverse software architectures for standalone and networked haptic systems are explained, and the authors demonstrate the vast application spectrum of this emerging technology along with its accompanying trends. The primary objective is to provide a comprehensive overview and a practical understanding of haptic technologies. An appreciation of the close relationship between the wide range of disciplines that constitute a haptic system is a key principle towards being able to build successful collaborative haptic environments.

Structured as a reference to allow for fast accommodation of the issues concerned, this book is intended for researchers interested in studying touch and force feedback for use in technological multimedia systems in computer science, electrical engineering, or other related disciplines. With its novel approach, it paves the way for exploring research trends and challenges in such fields as interpersonal communication, games, or military applications.

This book examines the fundamental question of how legislators and other rule-makers should handle remembering and forgetting information (especially personally identifiable information) in the digital age. It encompasses such topics as privacy, data protection, individual and collective memory, and the right to be forgotten when considering data storage, processing and deletion. The authors argue in support of maintaining the new digital default, that (personally identifiable) information should be remembered rather than forgotten. The book offers guidelines for legislators as well as private and public organizations on how to make decisions on remembering and forgetting personally identifiable information in the digital age. It draws on three main perspectives: law, based on a comprehensive analysis of Swiss law that serves as an example; technology, specifically search engines, internet archives, social media and the mobile internet; and an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions from various disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics, amongst others.. Thanks to this multifaceted approach, readers will benefit from a holistic view of the informational phenomenon of "remembering and forgetting". This book will appeal to lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, historians, economists, anthropologists, and psychologists among many others. Such wide appeal is due to its rich and interdisciplinary approach to the challenges for individuals and society at large with regard to remembering and forgetting in the digital age.

This book connects the different topics and professions involved in information technology approaches to architectural design, ranging from computer-aided design, building information modeling and programming to simulation, digital representation, augmented and virtual reality, digital fabrication and physical computation. The contributions include experts' academic and practical experiences and findings in research and advanced applications, covering the fields of architecture, engineering, design and mathematics. What are the conditions, constraints and opportunities of this digital revolution for architecture? How do processes change and influence the result? What does it mean for the collaboration and roles of the partners involved. And last but not least: how does academia reflect and shape this development and what does the future hold? Following the sequence of architectural production - from design to fabrication and construction up to the operation of buildings - the book discusses the impact of computational methods and technologies and its consequences for the education of future architects and designers. It offers detailed insights into the processes involved and considers them in the context of our technical, historical, social and cultural environment. Intended mainly for academic researchers, the book is also of interest to master's level students.

Collaborative Networks for a Sustainable World Aiming to reach a sustainable world calls for a wider collaboration among multiple stakeholders from different origins, as the changes needed for sustainability exceed the capacity and capability of any individual actor. In recent years there has been a growing awareness both in the political sphere and in civil society including the bu- ness sectors, on the importance of sustainability. Therefore, this is an important and timely research issue, not only in terms of systems design but also as an effort to b- row and integrate contributions from different disciplines when designing and/or g- erning those systems. The discipline of collaborative networks especially, which has already emerged in many application sectors, shall play a key role in the implemen- tion of effective sustainability strategies. PRO-VE 2010 focused on sharing knowledge and experiences as well as identi- ing directions for further research and development in this area. The conference - dressed models, infrastructures, support tools, and governance principles developed for collaborative networks, as important resources to support multi-stakeholder s- tainable developments. Furthermore, the challenges of this theme open new research directions for CNs. PRO-VE 2010 held in St.

'Entertainment media' are entertainment products and services that rely on digital technology and include traditional media (such as movies, TV, computer animation etc) as well as emerging services for wireless and broadband, electronic toys, video games, edutainment, and location-based entertainment (from PC game rooms to theme parks). Whilst most of the digital entertainment industry is found in the developed countries such as USA, Europe, and Japan, the decreasing costs of computer and programming technologies enables developing countries to really benefit from entertainment media in two ways: as creators and producers of games and entertainment for the global market and as a way to increase creativity and learning among the youth of the developing world. Focusing specifically on initiatives that use entertainment technologies to promote economic development, education, creativity and cultural dissemination, this book explores how current technology and the use of off-the-shelf technologies (such as cheap sensors, Kinect, Arduino and others) can be exploited to achieve more innovative and affordable ways to harness the entertainment power of creating. It poses questions such as 'How can we convert consumers of entertainment into creators of entertainment?' 'How can digital entertainment make a contribution to the emerging world?'. Academic researchers and students in human-computer interaction, entertainment computing, learning technologies will find the content thought-provoking, and companies and professionals in game and entertainment technology, mobile applications, social networking etc. will find this a valuable resource in developing new products and new markets.

This book explores how new communication and information technologies combine with transportation to modify human spatial and temporal relationships in everyday life. It targets the need to differentiate accessibility levels among a broad range of social groupings, the need to study disparities in electronic accessibility, and the need to investigate new measures and means of representing the geography of opportunity in the information age. It explores how models based on physical notions of distance and connectivity are insufficient for understanding the new structures and behaviors that characterize current regional realities, with examples drawn from Europe, New Zealand, and North America. While traditional notions of accessibility and spatial interaction remain important, information technologies are dramatically modifying and expanding the scope of these core geographical concepts.

This 2nd edition has been completely revised and updated, with additional new chapters. It presents state-of-the-art research in this area and focuses on key topics such as: visualization of semantic and structural information and metadata in the context of the emerging Semantic Web; Ontology-based Information Visualization and the use of graphically represented ontologies; Semantic Visualizations using Topic Maps and graph techniques; Recommender systems for filtering and recommending on the Semantic Web; SVG and X3D as new XML-based languages for 2D and 3D visualisations; methods used to construct and visualize high quality metadata and ontologies; and navigating and exploring XML documents using interactive multimedia interfaces. The design of visual interfaces for e-commerce and information retrieval is currently a challenging area of practical web development.

We are extremely pleased to present a comprehensive book comprising a collection of research papers which is basically an outcome of the Second IFIP TC 13.6 Working Group conference on Human Work Interaction Design, HWID2009. The conference was held in Pune, India during October 7-8, 2009. It was hosted by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, India, and jointly organized with Copenhagen Business School, Denmark; Aarhus University, Denmark; and Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India. The theme of HWID2009 was Usability in Social, C- tural and Organizational Contexts. The conference was held under the auspices of IFIP TC 13 on Human-Computer Interaction. 1 Technical Committee TC13 on Human-Computer Interaction The committees under IFIP include the Technical Committee TC13 on Human-Computer Interaction within which the work of this volume has been conducted. TC13 on Human-Computer Interaction has as its aim to encourage theoretical and empirical human science research to promote the design and evaluation of human-oriented ICT. Within TC13 there are different working groups concerned with different aspects of human- computer interaction. The flagship event of TC13 is the bi-annual international conference called INTERACT at which both invited and contributed papers are presented. Contributed papers are rigorously refereed and the rejection rate is high.

Advice involves recommendations on what to think; through thought, on what to choose; and via choices, on how to act. Advice is information that moves by communication, from advisors to the recipient of advice. Ivan Jureta offers a general way to analyze advice. The analysis applies regardless of what the advice is about and from whom it comes or to whom it needs to be given, and it concentrates on the production and consumption of advice independent of the field of application. It is made up of two intertwined parts, a conceptual analysis and an analysis of the rationale of advice. He premises that giving advice is a design problem and he treats advice as an artifact designed and used to influence decisions. What is unusual is the theoretical backdrop against which the author's discussions are set: ontology engineering, conceptual analysis, and artificial intelligence. While classical decision theory would be expected to play a key role, this is not the case here for one principal reason: the difficulty of having relevant numerical, quantitative estimates of probability and utility in most practical situations. Instead conceptual models and mathematical logic are the author's tools of choice. The book is primarily intended for graduate students and researchers of management science. They are offered a general method of analysis that applies to giving and receiving advice when the decision problems are not well structured, and when there is imprecise, unclear, incomplete, or conflicting qualitative information.

Aligning an organization's goals and strategies requires specifying their rationales and connections so that the links are explicit and allow for analytic reasoning about what is successful and where improvement is necessary. This book provides guidance on how to achieve this alignment, how to monitor the success of goals and strategies and use measurement to recognize potential failures, and how to close alignment gaps. It uses the GQM+Strategies approach, which provides concepts and actionable steps for creating the link between goals and strategies across an organization and allows for measurement-based decision-making. After outlining the general motivation for organizational alignment through measurement, the GQM+Strategies approach is described concisely, with a focus on the basic model that is created and the process for creating and using this model. The recommended steps of all six phases of the process are then described in detail with the help of a comprehensive application example. Finally, the industrial challenges addressed by the method and cases of its application in industry are presented, and the relations to other approaches, such as Balanced Scorecard, are described. The book concludes with supplementary material, such as checklists and guidelines, to support the application of the method. This book is aimed at organization leaders, managers, decision makers, and other professionals interested in aligning their organization's goals and strategies and establishing an efficient strategic measurement program. It is also interesting for academic researchers looking for mechanisms to integrate their research results into organizational environments.

The developments of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are not always continuous but may be influenced and shaped by unforeseen events and are therefore difficult to predict and control. This applies especially to the impacts of September 11 (2001) events on how ICT is used in economic and public applications. But even under pressures of terrorist actions, it is essential that Human Choice dominate how Information and Communication Technologies are shaped, applied and used.
Human Choice and Computers: Issues of Choice and Quality of Life in the Information Society presents different views about how terrorist actions are influencing political and social discussions and decisions, and it covers questions related to legitimacy and power in the Information Society. Ethical principles are important guidelines for responsible behavior of IT professionals. But even under strong external pressure, long ranging aspects such as education and the roles of developing countries in the Information Society are important to discuss, especially to enable all to actively participate in information processes.
The topics covered in this book include:

-Quality of Life and Quality of Working Life;
-Ethics and Social Accountability in the Information Society;
-Responsibility of IT Professionals;
-Legitimacy, Legality and Power in the Information Society;
-Roles of Developing Countries in the Information Society;
-Education and Social Impact;
-History of Computing;
-New Horizons of the Information Society;
-UNESCO Panels: "Information for All" and "Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace." This volume contains the edited proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC-6), which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in conjunction with the 17th IFIP World Computer Congress in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in August 2002. As with the five preceding conferences, starting with HCC-1 in 1974, IFIP's Technical Committee 9 has continued to set the agenda for human choices and human actions vis-a-vis computers."

This volume maps the watershed areas between two 'holy grails' of computer science: the identification and interpretation of "affect "- including sentiment and mood. The expression of sentiment and mood involves the use of metaphors, especially in emotive situations. Affect computing is rooted in hermeneutics, philosophy, political science and sociology, and is now a key area of research in computer science. The 24/7 news sites and blogs facilitate the expression and shaping of opinion locally and globally. Sentiment analysis, based on text and data mining, is being used in the looking at news and blogs for purposes as diverse as: brand management, film reviews, financial market analysis and prediction, homeland security. There are systems that learn how sentiments are articulated.

This work draws on, and informs, research in fields as varied as artificial intelligence, especially reasoning and machine learning, corpus-based information extraction, linguistics, and psychology. "

In 2007 INTEROP-VLab defined Enterprise Interoperability as the ability of an enterprise system or application to interact with others at a low cost with a flexible approach . Enterprise Interoperability VI brings together a peer reviewed selection of over 40 papers, ranging from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability. It shows how, in a scenario of globalised markets, the capacity to cooperate with other firms efficiently becomes essential in order to remain in the market in an economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective manner, and that the most innovative enterprises are beginning to redesign their business model to become interoperable. This goal of interoperability is vital, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the new business structures that are now emerging, such as supply chains, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Establishing efficient and relevant collaborative situations requires managing interoperability from a dynamic perspective: a relevant and efficient collaboration of organizations might require adaptation to remain in line with potentially changing objectives, evolving resources, and unexpected events, for example. Many of the papers contained in this, the seventh volume of Proceedings of the I-ESA Conferences have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA 14 Conference is jointly organised by Ecole des Mines Albi-Carmaux, on behalf of PGSO, and the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and supported by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability VI will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment."

The essays in this volume explore the new power struggles created in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong through information technology. The contributors analyze the interaction between the development of information technologies and social logic on the one hand and processes of unification and fragmentation on the other. They seek to highlight the strategies of public and private actors aimed at monopolizing the benefits created by the information society-whether for monetary gain or bureaucratic consolidation-as well as the new loci of power now emerging. The book is organized around two main themes: one exploring societal change and power relations, the second examining the restructuring of Greater China's space. In so doing, the book seeks to shed light on both the state formation process as well as international relations theory.