Reliability is one of the fundamental criteria in engineering systems. Design and maintenance serve to support it throughout the systems life. As such, maintenance acts in parallel to production and can have a great impact on the availability and capacity of production and the quality of the products. The authors describe current and innovative methods useful to industry and society.

Volume 55 covers some particularly hot topics. Linda Harasim writes about education and the Web in "The Virtual University: A State of the Art." She discusses the issues that will need to be addressed if online education is to live up to expectations. Neville Holmes covers a related subject in his chapter "The Net, the Web, and the Children." He argues that the Web is an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, development and highlights the division between the rich and the poor within and across nations. Continuing the WWW theme, George Mihaila, Louqa Raschid, and Maria-Esther Vidal look at the problems of using the Web and finding the information you want.
Naren Ramakrishnan and Anath Grama discuss another aspect of finding relevant information in large databases in their contribution. They discuss the algorithms, techniques, and methodologies for effective application of scientific data mining.
Returning to the Web theme, Ross Anderson, Frank Stajano, and Jong-Hyeon Lee address the issue of security policies. Their survey of the most significant security policy models in the literature shows how security may mean different things in different contexts.
John Savage, Alan Selman, and Carl Smith take a step back from the applications and address how theoretical computer science has had an impact on practical computing concepts. Finally, Yuan Taur takes a step even further back and discusses the development of the computer chip.
Thus, Volume 55 takes us from the very fundamentals of computer science-the chip-right to the applications and user interface with the Web.

Today's work is characterized by a high degree of innovation and thus demands a thorough overview of relevant knowledge in the world and in organizations. Semantic Work Environments support the work of the user by collecting knowledge about needs and providing processed and improved knowledge to be integrated into work. ""Emerging Technologies for Semantic Work Environments: Techniques, Methods, and Applications"" describes an overview of the emerging field of Semantic Work Environments by combining various research studies and underlining the similarities between different processes, issues and approaches in order to provide the reader with techniques, methods, and applications of the study.

The books in this trilogy capture the foundational core of advanced informatics. The authors make the foundations accessible, enabling students to become effective problem solvers. This first volume establishes the inductive approach as a fundamental principle for system and domain analysis. After a brief introduction to the elementary mathematical structures, such as sets, propositional logic, relations, and functions, the authors focus on the separation between syntax (representation) and semantics (meaning), and on the advantages of the consistent and persistent use of inductive definitions. They identify compositionality as a feature that not only acts as a foundation for algebraic proofs but also as a key for more general scalability of modeling and analysis. A core principle throughout is invariance, which the authors consider a key for the mastery of change, whether in the form of extensions, transformations, or abstractions. This textbook is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science and for self-study. Most chapters contain exercises and the content has been class-tested over many years in various universities.

Other books on the market have explored the principles of software configuration management (SCM), but none have tackled the nuts-and-bolts of implementing an SCM system - until now. This completely revised edition of an Artech House bestseller goes far above and beyond other SCM books as the only complete guide that integrates SCM principles, advanced topics, and implementation procedures in one easy-access resource. The second edition is greatly expanded with new chapters on documentation control, product data management, and SCM standards, and explroes the latest advances in SCM tools, organization, operation, and maintenance as well as new software development methodologies.

ISO 9001 is known throughout the world as the gold standard for quality process improvement, but quality assurances experts are also discovering the power of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration). This text explores how these two models can be used together to improve process quality by quantum leaps. It shows how organizations can streamline their quality process improvement programmes by capitalizing on the similarities both models share while minimizing their differences. The authors demonstrate that organizations can save valuable resources and money as they improve quality by moving towards both ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI compliance certification.

The integration of logic and probability combines the capability of the first to represent complex relations among entities with the capability of the latter to model uncertainty over attributes and relations. Logic programming provides a Turing complete language based on logic and thus represent an excellent candidate for the integration. Since its birth, the field of Probabilistic Logic Programming has seen a steady increase of activity, with many proposals for languages and algorithms for inference and learning. One of most successful approaches to Probabilistic Logic Programming is the Distribution Semantics, where a probabilistic logic program defines a probability distribution over normal logic programs and the probability of a ground query is then obtained from the joint distribution of the query and the programs. Foundations of Probabilistic Logic Programming aims at providing an overview of the field of Probabilistic Logic Programming, with a special emphasis on languages under the Distribution Semantics. The book presents the main ideas for semantics, inference and learning and highlights connections between the methods. Many examples of the book include a link to a page of the web application http://cplint.eu where the code can be run online.

As advances in technology continue to generate the collective knowledge of an organization and its operations, strategic models for information systems are developed in order to arrange business processes and business data. Frameworks for Developing Efficient Information Systems: Models, Theory, and Practice presents research and practices on the advancements in systems analysis and design. These theoretical frameworks and practical solutions are useful for researchers, practitioners, and academicians as this book aims to bridge the communication gap between business managers and system designers.

Human-computer interaction studies the users and their interaction with an interactive software system (ISS). However, these studies are designed for people without any type of disability, causing there to be few existing techniques or tools that focus on the characteristics of a specific user, thus causing accessibility and utility issues for neglected segments of the population. This reference source intends to remedy this lack of research by supporting an ISS focused on people with visual impairment. User-Centered Software Development for the Blind and Visually Impaired: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research on techniques, applications, and methods for carrying out software projects in which the main users are people with visual impairments. While highlighting topics including mobile technology, assistive technologies, and human-computer interaction, this book is ideally designed for software developers, computer engineers, designers, academics, researchers, professionals, and educators interested in current research on usable and accessible technologies.

A Deep Dive into NoSQL Databases: The Use Cases and Applications, Volume 109, the latest release in the Advances in Computers series first published in 1960, presents detailed coverage of innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design and applications. In addition, it provides contributors with a medium in which they can explore their subjects in greater depth and breadth. This update includes sections on NoSQL and NewSQL databases for big data analytics and distributed computing, NewSQL databases and scalable in-memory analytics, NoSQL web crawler application, NoSQL Security, a Comparative Study of different In-Memory (No/New)SQL Databases, NoSQL Hands On-4 NoSQLs, the Hadoop Ecosystem, and more.

With complex systems and complex requirements being a challenge that designers must face to reach quality results, multi-formalism modeling offers tools and methods that allow modelers to exploit the benefits of different techniques in a general framework intended to address these challenges. Theory and Application of Multi-Formalism Modeling boldly explores the importance of this topic by gathering experiences, theories, applications, and solutions from diverse perspectives of those involved with multi-formalism modeling. Professionals, researchers, academics, and students in this field will be able to critically evaluate the latest developments and future directions of multi-formalism research.

The work presented here is generally intended for engineers, educators at all levels, industrialists, managers, researchers and political representatives. Offering a snapshot of various types of research conducted within the field of TRIZ in France, it represents a unique resource. It has been two decades since the TRIZ theory originating in Russia spread across the world. Every continent adopted it in a different manner - sometimes by glorifying its potential and its perspectives (the American way); sometimes by viewing it with mistrust and suspicion (the European way); and sometimes by adopting it as-is, without questioning it further (the Asian way). However, none of these models of adoption truly succeeded. Today, an assessment of TRIZ practices in education, industry and research is necessary. TRIZ has expanded to many different scientific disciplines and has allowed young researchers to reexamine the state of research in their field. To this end, a call was sent out to all known francophone research laboratories producing regular research about TRIZ. Eleven of them agreed to send one or more of their postdoctoral researchers to present their work during a seminar, regardless of the maturity or completeness of their efforts. It was followed by this book project, presenting one chapter for every current thesis in order to reveal the breadth, the richness and the perspectives that research about the TRIZ theory could offer our society. The topics dealt with e.g. the development of new methods inspired by TRIZ, educational practices, and measuring team impact.

As Cavalli and Sarma astutely remarked in the introduction to this volume, it is quite remarkable that SDL '97 may have the first participant younger than SDL itself. SDL '97 provides the opportunity to reflect the course SDL has taken and why it has been successful over two decades where other languages addressing the same market have failed.

SDL now also has a permanent companion in MSC (Message Sequence Charts). MSC today is a language in its own right and has its areas of application both in conjunction with SDL and independently or in combination with other techniques. MSC has strong structuring concepts to specify message sequences for large systems and can be used to develop scenarios, which is extremely useful for test and design environments. The SDL Forum today really is the SDL and MSC Forum.

This classroom-tested textbook describes the design and implementation of software for distributed real-time systems, using a bottom-up approach. The text addresses common challenges faced in software projects involving real-time systems, and presents a novel method for simply and effectively performing all of the software engineering steps. Each chapter opens with a discussion of the core concepts, together with a review of the relevant methods and available software. This is then followed with a description of the implementation of the concepts in a sample kernel, complete with executable code. Topics and features: introduces the fundamentals of real-time systems, including real-time architecture and distributed real-time systems; presents a focus on the real-time operating system, covering the concepts of task, memory, and input/output management; provides a detailed step-by-step construction of a real-time operating system kernel, which is then used to test various higher level implementations; describes periodic and aperiodic scheduling, resource management, and distributed scheduling; reviews the process of application design from high-level design methods to low-level details of design and implementation; surveys real-time programming languages and fault tolerance techniques; includes end-of-chapter review questions, extensive C code, numerous examples, and a case study implementing the methods in real-world applications; supplies additional material at an associated website. Requiring only a basic background in computer architecture and operating systems, this practically-oriented work is an invaluable study aid for senior undergraduate and graduate-level students of electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. The text will also serve as a useful general reference for researchers interested in real-time systems.

Presenting the state of the art in component-based software testing, this cutting-edge resource offers you an in-depth understanding of the current issues, challenges, needs and solutions in this critical area. The book discusses the very latest advances in component-based testing and quality assurance in an accessible tutorial format, making the material easy to comprehend and benefit from no matter what your professional level. The book clearly explains what component-based software testing is, why it is important, and how it differs from traditional software testing. From an introduction to software components, testing component-based software and validation methods for software components, to performance testing and measurement, standards and certification and verification of quality for component-based systems, you get a revealing snapshot of the key developments in this area, including important research findings. This volume also serves as a textbook for related courses at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level.

Enterprise resource planning plays a strategic role in designing, and managing e-government resources. Governments all over the world face challenges in designing robust enterprise resource planning applications and methodologies to align themselves with the expectations of citizens and stakeholders. The existing standard enterprise resource planning solutions are proprietary, inflexible, and expensive to implement in government enterprises. Strategic Enterprise Resource Planning Models for E-Government: Applications and Methodologies is a collection of research from professionals and researchers working in the field of e-government including policymakers, ICT vendors, consultants, and implementing agencies. This book will aim to suggest enterprise resource planning frameworks for government enterprises along with their applications and methodologies to improve effectiveness of processes and enhance citizen-centric services. The research initiatives presented in this book will ease the process of implementing customized enterprise resource planning solutions in e-government.

This book provides a pioneering approach to modeling the human diabetic patient using a software agent. It is based on two MASc (Master of Applied Science) theses: one looking at the evolution of the patient agent in time, and another looking the interaction of the patient agent with the healthcare system. It shows that the software agent evolves in a manner analogous to the human patient and exhibits typical attributes of the illness such as reacting to food consumption, medications, and activity. This agent model can be used in a number of different ways, including as a prototype for a specific human patient with the purpose of helping to identify when that patient's condition deviates from normal variations. The software agent can also be used to study the interaction between the human patient and the health care system. This book is of interest to anyone involved in the management of diabetic patients or in societal research into the management of diabetes. The diabetic patient agent was developed using the Ackerman model for diabetes, but this model can be easily adapted for any other model subject with the necessary physiological data to support that model.

This book summarizes the new research results presented at the 12th Joint Conference on Knowledge-Based Software Engineering (JCKBSE 2018), which took place on August 27-30, 2018 on the island of Corfu, Greece. The JCKBSE is a well-established international biennial conference that focuses on the applications of Artificial Intelligence in Software Engineering. The JCKBSE 2018 was organized by the Department of Informatics of the University of Piraeus, the Department of Computer and Information Engineering of Nippon Institute of Technology, and the Department of Informatics of Ionian University. The book will benefit not only experts and researchers in the field of (Knowledge-Based) Software Engineering, but also general readers in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Computational Intelligence and Computer Science who wish to learn more about the field of (Knowledge-Based) Software Engineering and its applications. An extensive list of bibliographic references at the end of each paper encourages readers to probe further into the application areas that interest them most.

This book provides readers with an in-depth discussion of circuit simulation, combining basic electrical engineering circuit theory with Python programming. It fills an information gap by describing the development of Python Power Electronics, an open-source software for simulating circuits, and demonstrating its use in a sample circuit. Unlike typical books on circuit theory that describe how circuits can be solved mathematically, followed by examples of simulating circuits using specific, commercial software, this book has a different approach and focus. The author begins by describing every aspect of the open-source software, in the context of non-linear power electronic circuits, as a foundation for aspiring or practicing engineers to embark on further development of open source software for different purposes. By demonstrating explicitly the operation of the software through algorithms, this book brings together the fields of electrical engineering and software technology.

This book presents the outcomes of the 16th International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence Research, Management and Applications (SERA 2018), which was held in Kunming, China on June 13-15, 2018. The aim of the conference was to bring together researchers and scientists, businessmen and entrepreneurs, teachers, engineers, computer users, and students to discuss the various fields of computer science, to share their experiences, and to exchange new ideas and information in a meaningful way. The book includes findings on all aspects (theory, applications and tools) of computer and information science, and discusses related practical challenges and the solutions adopted to solve them. The conference organizers selected the best papers from those accepted for presentation. The papers were chosen based on review scores submitted by members of the program committee and underwent a further rigorous round of review. From this second round, 13 of the conference's most promising papers were then published in this Springer (SCI) book and not the conference proceedings. We eagerly await the important contributions that we know these authors will make to the field of computer and information science.

This book takes a foundational approach to the semantics of probabilistic programming. It elaborates a rigorous Markov chain semantics for the probabilistic typed lambda calculus, which is the typed lambda calculus with recursion plus probabilistic choice. The book starts with a recapitulation of the basic mathematical tools needed throughout the book, in particular Markov chains, graph theory and domain theory, and also explores the topic of inductive definitions. It then defines the syntax and establishes the Markov chain semantics of the probabilistic lambda calculus and, furthermore, both a graph and a tree semantics. Based on that, it investigates the termination behavior of probabilistic programs. It introduces the notions of termination degree, bounded termination and path stoppability and investigates their mutual relationships. Lastly, it defines a denotational semantics of the probabilistic lambda calculus, based on continuous functions over probability distributions as domains. The work mostly appeals to researchers in theoretical computer science focusing on probabilistic programming, randomized algorithms, or programming language theory.

This book focuses on innovative strategies to manage and build software systems for generating new knowledge from large archaeological data sets The book also reports on two case studies carried out in real-world scenarios within the Cultural Heritage setting. The book presents an original conceptual framework for developing software solutions to assist the knowledge generation process in connection with large archaeological data sets and related cultural heritage information- a context in which the inputs are mainly textual sources written in freestyle, i.e. without a predetermined, standard structure. Following an in-depth exploration of recent works on the knowledge generation process in the above-mentioned context and IT-based options for facilitating it, the book proposes specific new techniques capable of capturing the structure and semantics implicit in such textual sources, and argues for using this information in the knowledge generation process. The main result is the development of a conceptual framework that can accommodate textual sources and integrate the information included in them into a software engineering framework. The said framework is meant to assist cultural heritage professionals in general, and archaeologists in particular, in both knowledge extraction and the subsequent decision-making process.

Despite pressures of economic slowdown and the e-commerce bubble burst, moving towards e-services is a compelling necessity for today's organizations. Companies that are reluctant to adopt a service-oriented architecture in their IT systems will be missing out on unprecedented opportunities to create business value with relatively small IT investments. ""Engineering Service Oriented Systems: A Model-Driven Approach"" combines concepts from systems theory, model driven software engineering, and ontologies for software engineering into a systematic method for engineering service oriented systems while integrating both business and software perspectives.