This state of the art monograph presents a unique introduction to thinking about cuteness and its incorporation into modern, especially computer-based, products and services. Cuteness is defined and explored in relation to user-centered design concepts and methods, in addition to considering the history of cuteness and cuteness in other cultures, especially in relation to eastern Asia. The authors provide detailed analyses and histories of cuteness in Japan and in China, the rise of Kawaii and Moe cultural artifacts, and their relation to social, psychological, and design issues. They also attempt an initial taxonomy of cuteness. Finally, detailed interviews with leading designers of cute products and services, such as Hello Kitty, provide an understanding of the philosophy and decision-making process of designers of cuteness. Cuteness Engineering: Designing Adorable Products and Services will be of interest and use to a wide range of professionals, researchers, academics, and students who are interested in exploring the world of cuteness in fresh new ways and gaining insights useful for their work and studies.

This book provides an opportunity for investigators, government officials, systems scientists, strategists, assurance researchers, owners, operators and maintainers of large, complex and advanced systems and infrastructures to update their knowledge with the state of best practice in the challenging domains whilst networking with the leading representatives, researchers and solution providers. Drawing on 12 years of successful events on information security, digital forensics and cyber-crime, the 13th ICGS3-20 conference aims to provide attendees with an information-packed agenda with representatives from across the industry and the globe. The challenges of complexity, rapid pace of change and risk/opportunity issues associated with modern products, systems, special events and infrastructures. In an era of unprecedented volatile, political and economic environment across the world, computer-based systems face ever more increasing challenges, disputes and responsibilities, and whilst the Internet has created a global platform for the exchange of ideas, goods and services, it has also created boundless opportunities for cyber-crime. As an increasing number of large organizations and individuals use the Internet and its satellite mobile technologies, they are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-crime threats. It is therefore paramount that the security industry raises its game to combat these threats. Whilst there is a huge adoption of technology and smart home devices, comparably, there is a rise of threat vector in the abuse of the technology in domestic violence inflicted through IoT too. All these are an issue of global importance as law enforcement agencies all over the world are struggling to cope.

This new reference investigates the notion that ICTs have the potential to improve the lives of people and contribute to social development in a developing countries.

This book presents guidelines for a future device type: a tablet that allows ergonomic front- and back-of-device interaction. These guidelines help designers and developers of user interfaces to build ergonomic applications for tablet devices, in particular for devices that enable back-of-device interaction. In addition, manufacturers of tablet devices obtain arguments that back-of-device interaction is a promising extension of the interaction design space and results in increased input capabilities, enriched design possibilities, and proven usability. The guidelines are derived from empirical studies and developed to fit the users' skills to the way the novel device type is held. Three particular research areas that are relevant to develop design guidelines for tablet interaction are investigated: ergonomic gestures, interaction areas, and pointing techniques.

Collaboration in highly distributed organizations of people, robots, and autonomous systems is and must be revolutionized by engineering augmentation. The aim is to augment humans' abilities at work and, through this augmentation, improve organizations' abilities to accomplish their missions. This book establishes the theoretical foundations and design principles of collaborative e-Work, e-Business and e-Service, their models and applications, design and implementation techniques. The fundamental premise is that without effective e-Work and e-Services, the potential of emerging activities, such as e-Commerce, virtual manufacturing, tele-robotic medicine, automated construction, smart energy grid, cyber-supported agriculture, and intelligent transportation cannot be fully materialized. Typically, workers and managers of such value networks are frustrated with complex information systems, originally designed and built to simplify and improve performance. Even if the human-computer interface for such systems is well designed, the information and task overloads can be overwhelming. Effective delivery of expected outcomes may not occur. Challenges and emerging solutions in the context of the recently developed CCT, Collaborative Control Theory, are described, with emphasis on issues of computer-supported and communication-enabled integration, coordination and augmented collaboration. Research results and analyses of engineering design methods and complex systems management techniques are explained and illustrated.

The 21st century has seen an expansion in digital technology and the ways in which it affects everyday life. These technologies have become essential in the growth of social communication and mass media. Fostering 21st Century Digital Literacy and Technical Competency offers the latest in research on the technological advances on computer proficiency in the educational system and society. This collection of research brings together theories and experiences in order to create a common framework and is essential for educators and professionals in the technology fields.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with an emphasis on security, coverage, and localization. It offers a structural treatment of WSN building blocks including hardware and protocol architectures and also provides a systems-level view of how WSNs operate. These building blocks will allow readers to program specialized applications and conduct research in advanced topics. A brief introductory chapter covers common applications and communication protocols for WSNs. Next, the authors review basic mathematical models such as Voroni diagrams and Delaunay triangulations. Sensor principles, hardware structure, and medium access protocols are examined. Security challenges ranging from defense strategies to network robustness are explored, along with quality of service measures. Finally, this book discusses recent developments and future directions in WSN platforms. Each chapter concludes with classroom-tested exercises that reinforce key concepts. This book is suitable for researchers and for practitioners in industry. Advanced-level students in electrical engineering and computer science will also find the content helpful as a textbook or reference.

This is a unique book addressing the integration of risk methodology from various fields. It will stimulate intellectual debate and communication across disciplines, promote better risk management practices and contribute to the development of risk management methodologies. Individual chapters explain fundamental risk models and measurement, and address risk and security issues from diverse areas such as finance and insurance, the health sciences, life sciences, engineering and information science. Integrated Risk Sciences is an emerging discipline that considers risks in different fields, aiming at a common language, and at sharing and improving methods developed in different fields. Readers should have a Bachelor degree and have taken at least one basic university course in statistics and probability. The main goal of the book is to provide basic knowledge on risk and security in a common language; the authors have taken particular care to ensure that all content can readily be understood by doctoral students and researchers across disciplines. Each chapter provides simple case studies and examples, open research questions and discussion points, and a selected bibliography inviting readers to further study.

A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing and the Internet, 4e is ideal for courses in Computer Ethics and Computers and Society. Sara Baase explores the social, legal, philosophical, ethical, political, constitutional, and economic implications of computing and the controversies they raise. With a computer scientist's perspective, and with historical context for many issues, she covers the issues students will face both as members of a technological society and as professionals in computer-related fields. A primary goal is to develop computer professionals who understand the implications of what they create and how it fits into society at large.

Our digital technologies have inspired new ways of thinking about old religious topics. Digitalists include computer scientists, transhumanists, singularitarians, and futurists. Writers such as Moravec, Bostrom, Kurzweil, and Chalmers are digitalists. Although they are usually scientists, rationalists, and atheists, digitalists they have worked out novel and entirely naturalistic ways of thinking about bodies, minds, souls, universes, gods, and life after death. Your Digital Afterlives starts with three digitalist theories of life after death. It examines personality capture, body uploading, and promotion to higher levels of simulation. It then examines the idea that reality itself is ultimately a system of self-surpassing computations. On that view, you will have infinitely many digital lives across infinitely many digital worlds. Your Digital Afterlives looks at superhuman bodies and infinite bodies. Thinking of nature in purely computational terms has the potential to radically and positively change our understanding of life after death.

This book explores the factors that make digital disruption possible and the effects this has on existing business models. It takes a look at the industries that are most susceptible to disruption and highlights what executives can do to take advantage of disruption to re-invent their business model. It also examines the pivotal role that technology plays in creating new dynamics to business operations and forcing business model changes. Adoption of digital technology has caused process disruptions in a number of industries and led to new business models (e.g., UEber, AirBnb) and new products. In addition to covering some of the more popular and well known examples, this book targets not so obvious disruptions in the education sector and in services and changing business models. Phantom Ex Machina: Digital Disruption's Role in Business Model Transformation is divided into six parts. The book begins with an introduction to digital disruption and why it matters. The next part of the book focuses on business strategy which includes case studies on the impact of social media and how digital disruption changes pricing strategies and price models. For part three, the authors observe technology's role in digital disruptions. Chapters cover how 3D printing is challenging existing business models and how the automotive industry is innovating with new perspectives. Part four covers higher education, recognizing digital disruption's transformation in graduate management education. Part five centers upon the service industry with a look at virtual teams and the emergence of virtual think tanks. Finally the book concludes with a look to the future, embracing disruptions.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is easy to define yet difficult to predict. Encompassing the management, study, planning, and design of the ways in which users interact with computers, this field has evolved from using punch cards to force touch in a matter of decades. What was once considered science fiction is now ubiquitous. The future of HCI is mercurial, yet predictions point to the effortless use of high-functioning services. The Handbook of Research on Human-Computer Interfaces, Developments, and Applications is primarily concerned with emerging research regarding gesture interaction, augmented reality, and assistive technologies and their place within HCI. From gaming to rehabilitation systems, these new technologies share the need to interface with humans, and as computers become thoroughly integrated into everyday life, so does the necessity of HCI research. This handbook of research benefits the research needs of programmers, developers, students and educators in computer science, and researchers.

Information is considered both an essential element of organizational design and an asset to be processed and managed. Further research on and application of topics relating to the architecture, management, and use of information is imperative to organizational success. The Handbook of Research on Information Architecture and Management in Modern Organizations focuses on information as an essential element of organizational design and emphasizes the strategic role of knowledge transfer and management in organizations across industries. Taking a cross-disciplinary approach to information architecture and management, this publication draws on research essential to diverse organizations and is designed for use by business professionals, researchers, academicians, and upper-level students. This comprehensive reference work features key research and concepts on topics related to information functionality, information modeling, information overload, information retrieval, innovation management, organizational architecture, informed governance, and relevant applications across industries.

The book focuses on Social Collective Intelligence, a term used to denote a class of socio-technical systems that combine, in a coordinated way, the strengths of humans, machines and collectives in terms of competences, knowledge and problem solving capabilities with the communication, computing and storage capabilities of advanced ICT. Social Collective Intelligence opens a number of challenges for researchers in both computer science and social sciences; at the same time it provides an innovative approach to solve challenges in diverse application domains, ranging from health to education and organization of work. The book will provide a cohesive and holistic treatment of Social Collective Intelligence, including challenges emerging in various disciplines (computer science, sociology, ethics) and opportunities for innovating in various application areas. By going through the book the reader will gauge insight and knowledge into the challenges and opportunities provided by this new, exciting, field of investigation. Benefits for scientists will be in terms of accessing a comprehensive treatment of the open research challenges in a multidisciplinary perspective. Benefits for practitioners and applied researchers will be in terms of access to novel approaches to tackle relevant problems in their field. Benefits for policy-makers and public bodies representatives will be in terms of understanding how technological advances can support them in supporting the progress of society and economy.

This book combines the three dimensions of technology, society and economy to explore the advent of today's cloud ecosystems as successors to older service ecosystems based on networks. Further, it describes the shifting of services to the cloud as a long-term trend that is still progressing rapidly.The book adopts a comprehensive perspective on the key success factors for the technology - compelling business models and ecosystems including private, public and national organizations. The authors explore the evolution of service ecosystems, describe the similarities and differences, and analyze the way they have created and changed industries. Lastly, based on the current status of cloud computing and related technologies like virtualization, the internet of things, fog computing, big data and analytics, cognitive computing and blockchain, the authors provide a revealing outlook on the possibilities of future technologies, the future of the internet, and the potential impacts on business and society.

Cryptography has experienced rapid development, with major advances recently in both secret and public key ciphers, cryptographic hash functions, cryptographic algorithms and multiparty protocols, including their software engineering correctness verification, and various methods of cryptanalysis. This textbook introduces the reader to these areas, offering an understanding of the essential, most important, and most interesting ideas, based on the authors' teaching and research experience.

After introducing the basic mathematical and computational complexity concepts, and some historical context, including the story of Enigma, the authors explain symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, electronic signatures and hash functions, PGP systems, public key infrastructures, cryptographic protocols, and applications in network security. In each case the text presents the key technologies, algorithms, and protocols, along with methods of design and analysis, while the content is characterized by a visual style and all algorithms are presented in readable pseudocode or using simple graphics and diagrams.

The book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science and engineering, particularly in the area of networking, and it is also a suitable reference text for self-study by practitioners and researchers. The authors assume only basic elementary mathematical experience, the text covers the foundational mathematics and computational complexity theory.

This book reports on the theoretical foundations, fundamental applications and latest advances in various aspects of connected services for health information systems. The twelve chapters highlight state-of-the-art approaches, methodologies and systems for the design, development, deployment and innovative use of multisensory systems and tools for health management in smart city ecosystems. They exploit technologies like deep learning, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, cyber physical systems and sensor networks. Presenting the latest developments, identifying remaining challenges, and outlining future research directions for sensing, computing, communications and security aspects of connected health systems, the book will mainly appeal to academic and industrial researchers in the areas of health information systems, smart cities, and augmented reality.

This text presents an overview of smart information systems for both the private and public sector, highlighting the research questions that can be studied by applying computational intelligence. The book demonstrates how to transform raw data into effective smart information services, covering the challenges and potential of this approach. Each chapter describes the algorithms, tools, measures and evaluations used to answer important questions. This is then further illustrated by a diverse selection of case studies reflecting genuine problems faced by SMEs, multinational manufacturers, service companies, and the public sector. Features: provides a state-of-the-art introduction to the field, integrating contributions from both academia and industry; reviews novel information aggregation services; discusses personalization and recommendation systems; examines sensor-based knowledge acquisition services, describing how the analysis of sensor data can be used to provide a clear picture of our world.

This book focuses on how to apply network coding at different layers in wireless networks - including MAC, routing, and TCP - with special focus on cognitive radio networks. It discusses how to select parameters in network coding (e.g., coding field, number of packets involved, redundant information ration) in order to be suitable for the varying wireless environments. The author explores how to deploy network coding in MAC to improve network performance and examine joint network coding with opportunistic routing to improve the successful rate of routing. In regards to TCP and network coding, the author considers transport layer protocol working with network coding to overcome the transmission error rate, particularly with how to use the ACK feedback of TCP to enhance the efficiency of network coding. The book pertains to researchers and postgraduate students, especially whose interests are in opportunistic routing and TCP in cognitive radio networks.

The book explores new ways to reconstruct and enhance speech that is compromised by various neuro-motor disorders - collectively known as "dysarthria." The authors address some of the extant lacunae in speech research of dysarthric conditions: they show how new methods can improve speaker recognition when speech is impaired due to developmental or acquired pathologies; they present a novel multi-dimensional approach to help the speech system both assess dysarthric speech and to perform intelligibility improvement of the impaired speech; they display well-performing software solutions for developmental and acquired speech impairments, and for vocal injuries; and they examine non-acoustic signals and muted nonverbal sounds in relation to audible speech conversion.

This agenda-setting book presents state of the art research in Music and Human-Computer Interaction (also known as 'Music Interaction'). Music Interaction research is at an exciting and formative stage. Topics discussed include interactive music systems, digital and virtual musical instruments, theories, methodologies and technologies for Music Interaction. Musical activities covered include composition, performance, improvisation, analysis, live coding, and collaborative music making. Innovative approaches to existing musical activities are explored, as well as tools that make new kinds of musical activity possible. Music and Human-Computer Interaction is stimulating reading for professionals and enthusiasts alike: researchers, musicians, interactive music system designers, music software developers, educators, and those seeking deeper involvement in music interaction. It presents the very latest research, discusses fundamental ideas, and identifies key issues and directions for future work.