Due to the unapparelled rise of this in-demand field, very few in the role of a project manager have the practical tools needed to successfully navigate the politics of today's corporate world. To ensure projects get completed on time and on budget, project managers need more than just technical skills--they need the right communication skills to succeed. Filled with helpful real-world examples, Project Management That Works equips project managers for success by teaching them how to: communicate with their teams as well as stakeholders; get their teams to function well; run fewer and more productive meetings; turn around failing projects; utilize data properly to make emotional conversations unemotional; and know when a project is really done. While many of project managers know how to plan a successful project in theory, Project Management That Works helps readers address the real challenges--both organizational and interpersonal--that keep projects from completion so they can accomplish their goals.

Metaheuristic algorithms are considered as generic optimization tools that can solve very complex problems characterized by having very large search spaces. Metaheuristic methods reduce the effective size of the search space through the use of effective search strategies. Book Features: Provides a unified view of the most popular metaheuristic methods currently in use Includes the necessary concepts to enable readers to implement and modify already known metaheuristic methods to solve problems Covers design aspects and implementation in MATLAB (R) Contains numerous examples of problems and solutions that demonstrate the power of these methods of optimization The material has been written from a teaching perspective and, for this reason, this book is primarily intended for undergraduate and postgraduate students of artificial intelligence, metaheuristic methods, and/or evolutionary computation. The objective is to bridge the gap between metaheuristic techniques and complex optimization problems that profit from the convenient properties of metaheuristic approaches. Therefore, engineer practitioners who are not familiar with metaheuristic computation will appreciate that the techniques discussed are beyond simple theoretical tools, since they have been adapted to solve significant problems that commonly arise in such areas.

The Lean Approach to Digital Transformation: From Customer to Code and From Code to Customer is organized into three parts that expose and develop the three capabilities that are essential for a successful digital transformation: 1. Understanding how to co-create digital services with users, whether they are customers or future customers. This ability combines observation, dialogue, and iterative experimentation. The approach proposed in this book is based on the Lean Startup approach, according to an extended vision that combines Design Thinking and Growth Hacking. Companies must become truly "customer-centric", from observation and listening to co-development. The revolution of the digital age of the 21st century is that customer orientation is more imperative -- the era of abundance, usages rate of change, complexity of experiences, and shift of power towards communities -- are easier, using digital tools and digital communities. 2. Developing an information system (IS) that is the backbone of the digital transformation - called "exponential information system" to designate an open IS (in particular on its borders), capable of interfacing and combining with external services, positioned as a player in software ecosystems and built for processing scalable and dynamic data flows. The exponential information system is constantly changing and it continuously absorbs the best of information processing technology, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. 3. Building software "micro-factories" that produce service platforms, which are called "Lean software factories." This "software factory" concept covers the integration of agile methods, tooling and continuous integration and deployment practices, a customer-oriented product approach, and a platform approach based on modularity, as well as API-based architecture and openness to external stakeholders. This software micro-factory is the foundation that continuously produces and provides constantly evolving services. These three capabilities are not unique or specific to this book, they are linked to other concepts such as agile methods, product development according to lean principles, software production approaches such as CICD (continuous integration and deployment) or DevOps. This book weaves a common frame of reference for all these approaches to derive more value from the digital transformation and to facilitate its implementation. The title of the book refers to the "lean approach to digital transformation" because the two underlying frameworks, Lean Startup and Lean Software Factory, are directly inspired by Lean, in the sense of the Toyota Way. The Lean approach is present from the beginning to the end of this book -- it provides the framework for customer orientation and the love of a job well done, which are the conditions for the success of a digital transformation.

The Unified Modeling Language, better known as UML, has become the de facto standard modeling language for analyzing and designing software applications and systems. Software analysis and design is just as much an art as it is a science. UML Diagramming: A Catalog of Cases shows the art and the science behind successful software analysis and design with more than 35 case studies of applications of a variety of industries, including: Transportation Healthcare Supply chain management Education Agriculture Manufacturing The book explains UML diagramming through case studies to help systems and software developers specify, visualize, construct, and document the artifacts of software systems. The cases demonstrate how UML embodies software engineering best practices for modeling large and complex systems. They show how UML is an intuitive diagramming language that can be easily understood by end-users and business professionals. These cases studies also demonstrate how UML is a powerful language for communicating software designs to help developers and end users validate application scope, requirements, and features. Case studies highlighted in the book included: WEBMED healthcare service system services Inventory management system Business process outsourcing (BPO) management system Weather monitoring system Product recommendation system Textile management system Smart traffic management system Online pharmacy management system Placement automation system Farm management system Art gallery management system Website development This catalog of UML case studies is an invaluable reference for students studying software engineering, programmers starting out their careers, and seasoned systems developers needing a reference guide.

Project or program health checks provide tremendous value to businesses and pay for themselves by multiples of magnitude. No matter how well a project or program is performing, there are always activities that can provide better value, reduce costs, or introduce more innovation. IT project and program health checks can help organizations reach their goals and dramatically improve Return on Investment (ROI). IT Project Health Checks: Driving Successful Implementation and Multiples of Business Value offers a proven approach for evaluating IT projects or programs in order to determine how they are performing and how the eventual outcome for the initiative is currently trending. The project or program health checks provide a set of techniques that produce actionable recommendations that can be applied for any combination of the following outcomes: Drive more business and technical value from a program Set a project or program back on track for successful implementation as defined by executive management Rescue a program that is heading towards failure Act as additional insurance for initiatives that are too important to fail Protect executive careers by creating transparency within the inner workings of complex initiatives. The book shows how a review can quickly identify whether an initiative needs to be rescued even when the project team is not aware that it is hurtling towards failure. It also provides techniques for driving business value even when a project team believes it's been stretched as much as possible. Other outcomes covered in this book include: Objectively develop a project Health-Check Scorecard that establishes how well a project is doing and the direction it is headed Demonstrate how to drive business value from an IT program regardless of how well or badly it is tracking Provide surgical advice to improve a project's outcome How to use the many templates and sample deliverables to get a quick start on your own health check. Designed to provide significant value to any member of a project team, program team, stakeholders, sponsors, business users, system integrators, trainers, and IT professionals, this book can help find opportunities to drive multiples of business value and exceed project success metrics.

Combining theory and practice, this updated new edition provides a complete overview of how to create deep and meaningful quests for games. It uses the Unity game engine in conjunction with Fungus and other free plugins to provide an accessible entry into quest design. The book begins with an introduction to the theory and history of quests in games, before covering four theoretical components of quests: their spaces, objects, actors, and challenges. Each chapter also includes a practical section, with accompanying exercises and suggestions for the use of specific technologies for four crucial aspects of quest design: * level design * quest item creation * NPC and dialogue construction * scripting This book will be of great interest to all game designers looking to create new, innovative quests in their games. It will also appeal to new media researchers, as well as humanities scholars in the fields of mythology and depth-psychology that want to bring computer-assisted instruction into their classroom in an innovative way. The companion website includes lecture and workshop slides, and can be accessed at: www.designingquests.com

In the 5G era, edge computing and new ecosystems of mobile microservices enable new business models, strategies, and competitive advantage. Focusing on microservices, this book introduces the essential concepts, technologies, and trade-offs in the edge computing architectural stack, providing for widespread adoption and dissemination. The book elucidates the concepts, architectures, well-defined building blocks, and prototypes for mobile microservice platforms and pervasive application development, as well as the implementation and configuration of service middleware and AI-based microservices. A goal-oriented service composition model is then proposed by the author, allowing for an economic assessment of connected, smart mobile services. Based on this model, costs can be minimized through statistical workload aggregation effects or backhaul data transport reduction, and customer experience and safety can be enhanced through reduced response times. This title will be a useful guide for students and IT professionals to get started with microservices and when studying the use of microservices in pervasive applications. It will also appeal to researchers and students studying software architecture and service-oriented computing, and especially those interested in edge computing, pervasive computing, the Internet of Things, and mobile microservices.

This comprehensive book unveils the working relationship of blockchain and the fog/edge computing. The contents of the book have been designed in such a way that the reader will not only understand blockchain and fog/edge computing but will also understand their co-existence and their collaborative power to solve a range of versatile problems. The first part of the book covers fundamental concepts and the applications of blockchain-enabled fog and edge computing. These include: Internet of Things, Tactile Internet, Smart City; and E-challan in the Internet of Vehicles. The second part of the book covers security and privacy related issues of blockchain-enabled fog and edge computing. These include, hardware primitive based Physical Unclonable Functions; Secure Management Systems; security of Edge and Cloud in the presence of blockchain; secure storage in fog using blockchain; and using differential privacy for edge-based Smart Grid over blockchain. This book is written for students, computer scientists, researchers and developers, who wish to work in the domain of blockchain and fog/edge computing. One of the unique features of this book is highlighting the issues, challenges, and future research directions associated with Blockchain-enabled fog and edge computing paradigm. We hope the readers will consider this book a valuable addition in the domain of Blockchain and fog/edge computing.

The Cloud in IoT-enabled Spaces addresses major issues and challenges in IoT-based solutions proposed for the Cloud. It paves the way for IoT-enabled spaces in the next generation cloud computing paradigm and opens the door for further innovative ideas. Topics include Cloud-based optimization in the IoT era, scheduling and routing, medium access, data caching, secure access, uncertainty, home automation, machine learning in wearable devices, energy monitoring, and plant phenotyping in farming. Smart spaces are solutions where Internet of Things (IoT)-enabling technologies have been employed towards further advances in the lifestyle. It tightly integrates with the existing Cloud infrastructure to impact several fields in academia and industry. The Cloud in IoT-enabled Spaces provides an overview of the issues around small spaces and proposes the most up-to-date alternatives and solutions. The objective is to pave the way for IoT-enabled spaces in the next-generation Cloud computing and open the door for further innovative ideas.

This textbook was written from the perspective of someone who began his software security career in 2005, long before the industry began focusing on it. This is an excellent perspective for students who want to learn about securing application development. After having made all the rookie mistakes, the author realized that software security is a human factors issue rather than a technical or process issue alone. Throwing technology into an environment that expects people to deal with it but failing to prepare them technically and psychologically with the knowledge and skills needed is a certain recipe for bad results. Practical Security for Agile and DevOps is a collection of best practices and effective implementation recommendations that are proven to work. The text leaves the boring details of software security theory out of the discussion as much as possible to concentrate on practical applied software security that is useful to professionals. It is as much a book for students' own benefit as it is for the benefit of their academic careers and organizations. Professionals who are skilled in secure and resilient software development and related tasks are in tremendous demand. This demand will increase exponentially for the foreseeable future. As students integrate the text's best practices into their daily duties, their value increases to their companies, management, community, and industry. The textbook was written for the following readers: Students in higher education programs in business or engineering disciplines AppSec architects and program managers in information security organizations Enterprise architecture teams with a focus on application development Scrum Teams including: Scrum Masters Engineers/developers Analysts Architects Testers DevOps teams Product owners and their management Project managers Application security auditors Agile coaches and trainers Instructors and trainers in academia and private organizations

Learning by Doing with National Instruments Development Boards starts with a brief introduction to LabVIEW programming, which is required to explore the National Instrument platform, an introduction that includes detailed installation and licensing setup. Further, it gives the features and configuration setup of NI SPEEDY-33, NI ELVIS and myRIO boards. The focus of the book is on worked-out case studies for students working in different areas of electronics such as basic digital design, biomedical instrumentation, sensors and measurement. Data acquisition using SPEEDY-33, NI -ELVIS and myRIO kits is also odiscussed. The book also examines the myRIO platform.

The Web of Things (WoT) is a concept that describes approaches, programming tools and software architectural systems, which interface networks of real-world objects with the World Wide Web. The book is organized into 11 chapters, each focusing on a unique wireless technological aspect of the Web of Things, and it aims to comprehensively cover each of its various applications, including: A strong emphasis on WoT problems and solutions, identifying the main open issues, innovations and latest technologies behind WoT A blend of theoretical and simulation-based problems for better understanding of the concepts behind WoT Various exemplifying applications in which the use of WoT is very attractive and an inspiration for future applications The book will be useful to researchers, software developers and undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as practitioners.

Do you have creative ideas that you wish you could transform into code? Do you want to boost your problem solving and logic skills? Do you want to enhance your career by adopting an algorithmic mindset? In our increasingly digital world, coding is an essential skill. Communicating an algorithm to a machine to perform a set of tasks is vital. Beginner's Guide to Code Algorithms: Experiments to Enhance Productivity and Solve Problems written by Deepankar Maitra teaches you how to think like a programmer. The author unravels the secret behind writing code - building a good algorithm. Algorithmic thinking leads to asking the right question and enables a shift from issue resolution to value creation. Having this mindset will make you more marketable to employers. This book takes you on a problem-solving journey to expand your mind and increase your willingness to experiment with code. You will: Learn the art of building an algorithm through hands-on exercises Understand how to develop code for inspiring productivity concepts Build a mentality of developing algorithms to solve problems Develop, test, review, and improve code through guided experimentation This book is designed to develop a culture of logical thinking through intellectual stimulation. It will benefit students and teachers of programming, business professionals, as well as experienced users of Microsoft Excel who wish to become proficient with macros.

The agile transformation is an act of transforming an organization's form or nature gradually to one that can embrace and thrive in a flexible, collaborative, self-organizing, and fast-changing environment. It seems like most of the companies starting an agile transformation never reach the goal of agility, but there are those few that truly become agile and reap incredible benefits by utilizing DevOps as well. This book introduces the theory and practice of the "double-flywheels model" of Continuous Delivery 2.0: Discovery Loop, which allows information technology (IT) organizations to help businesses figure out the most efficacious ways to develop. Additionally, it explores applications of the Verification Loop that allows IT organizations to deliver value quickly and safely with high quality. Along the way, the book provides an array of insights and case studies that dive into all the aspects of software delivery, and how to implement Continuous Delivery in the most economical way for long-run business development. Features Organization culture and software architecture Business requirement management Pipeline and tooling Branching and releasing strategy Automation strategy Configuration and artefacts management Deployment and production healthy The case studies at the end of the book-scenarios in which the author was personally involved-are explored in depth and meticulously detailed in order to represent typical agile transition scenarios that will benefit all readers.

Includes step-by-step screenshots for all the examples Shows the graphical user interface of COMSOL, which does not require any programming effort Provides chapter-end problems for extensive practice along with solutions Includes actual examples of chemical reactors, transport processes, fluid flow, and heat and mass transfer

provides a thorough understanding of the integration of computational intelligence with information retrieval includes discussion on protecting and analysing big data on cloud platforms provides a plethora of theoretical as well as experimental research, along with surveys and impact studies

Essential Java serves as an introduction to the programming language, Java, for scientists and engineers, and can also be used by experienced programmers wishing to learn Java as an additional language. The book focuses on how Java, and object-oriented programming, can be used to solve science and engineering problems.
Many examples are included from a number of different scientific and engineering areas, as well as from business and everyday life. Pre-written packages of code are provided to help in such areas as input/output, matrix manipulation and scientific graphing.
Java source code and solutions to selected exercises are available at: www.bh.com/companions/0750659912
A free solutions manual is available to lecturers at: http: //textbooks.elsevier.com
* Takes a 'dive-in' approach, getting the reader writing and running programs immediately
* Teaches object-oriented programming for problem-solving in engineering and science
* Fully supported with online resources and listings to download

1) The book provides a basic understanding to readers who want to start their career in web application development. The book develops an understanding of the basics concepts and then takes a broader turn to enlighten the readers about the horizons which can be accessed using JavaScript. 2) JavaScript is exhaustively used in almost all kinds of application development, be it the web applications, cross platform mobile applications, server backend applications. JavaScript is now being used for full stack development and is thus used to write independent applications. Since the need for JavaScript web developers is high, the numbers of students should be high as well. 3) As compared to other books in the market, the proposed book would cover more topics (or, better, levels) in a single volume.

The field of information technology continues to advance at a brisk pace, including the use of Remote Laboratory (RL) systems in education and research. To address the needs of remote laboratory development for such purposes, the authors present a new state-of-the-art unified framework for RL system development. Included are solutions to commonly encountered RL implementation issues such as third-party plugin, traversing firewalls, cross platform running, and scalability, etc. Additionally, the book introduces a new application architecture of remote lab for mobile-optimized RL application development for Mobile Learning (M-Learning). It also shows how to design and organize the remote experiments at different universities and make available a framework source code. The book is intended to serve as a complete guide for remote lab system design and implementation for an audience comprised of researchers, practitioners and students to enable them to rapidly and flexibly implement RL systems for a range of fields.

Discusses core concepts and principles of deep learning in gaming and animation with applications. Covers application of neural networks for intelligent video game character. Discusses automated video generation and real time animation. Covers technological advancements in virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR).

Nanoelectronic Devices for Hardware and Software Security has comprehensive coverage of the principles, basic concepts, structure, modeling, practices, and circuit applications of nanoelectronics in hardware/software security. It also covers the future research directions in this domain. In this evolving era, nanotechnology is converting semiconductor devices dimensions from micron technology to nanotechnology. Nanoelectronics would be the key enabler for innovation in nanoscale devices, circuits, and systems. The motive for this research book is to provide relevant theoretical frameworks that include device physics, modeling, circuit design, and the latest developments in experimental fabrication in the field of nanotechnology for hardware/software security. There are numerous challenges in the development of models for nanoscale devices (e.g., FinFET, gate-all-around devices, TFET, etc.), short channel effects, fringing effects, high leakage current, and power dissipation, among others. This book will help to identify areas where there are challenges and apply nanodevice and circuit techniques to address hardware/software security issues.

IT projects emerge from a business need. In practice, software developers must accomplish two big things before an IT project can begin: find out what you need to do (i.e., analyse business requirements) and plan out how to do it (i.e., project management). The biggest problem in IT projects is delivering the wrong product because IT people do not understand what business people require. This practical textbook teaches computer science students how to manage and deliver IT projects by linking business and IT requirements with project management in an incremental and straightforward approach. Business Analysis, Requirements, and Project Management: A Guide for Computing Students presents an approach to analysis management that scales the business perspective. It takes a business process view of a business proposal as a model and explains how to structure a technical problem into a recognisable pattern with problem frames. It shows how to identify core transactions and model them as use cases to create a requirements table useful to designers and coders. Linked to the analysis are three management tools: the product breakdown structure (PBS), the Gantt chart, and the Kanban board. The PBS is derived in part from the problem frame. The Gantt chart emerges from the PBS and ensures the key requirements are addressed by reference to use cases. The Kanban board is especially useful in Task Driven Development, which the text covers. This textbook consists of two interleaving parts and features a single case study. Part one addresses the business and requirements perspective. The second integrates core project management approaches and explains how both requirements and management are connected. The remainder of the book is appendices, the first of which provides solutions to the exercises presented in each chapter. The second appendix puts together much of the documentation for the case study into one place. The case study presents a real-word business scenario to expose students to professional practice.

Network infrastructures are growing rapidly to meet the needs of business, but the required repolicing and reconfiguration provide challenges that need to be addressed. The software-defined network (SDN) is the future generation of Internet technology that can help meet these challenges of network management. This book includes quantitative research, case studies, conceptual papers, model papers, review papers, and theoretical backing on SDN. This book investigates areas where SDN can help other emerging technologies deliver more efficient services, such as IoT, industrial IoT, NFV, big data, blockchain, cloud computing, and edge computing. The book demonstrates the many benefits of SDNs, such as reduced costs, ease of deployment and management, better scalability, availability, flexibility and fine-grained control of traffic, and security. The book demonstrates the many benefits of SDN, such as reduced costs, ease of deployment and management, better scalability, availability, flexibility and fine-grained control of traffic, and security. Chapters in the volume address: Design considerations for security issues and detection methods State-of-the-art approaches for mitigating DDos attacks using SDN Big data using Apache Hadoop for processing and analyzing large amounts of data Different tools used for attack simulation Network policies and policy management approaches that are widely used in the context of SDN Dynamic flow tables, or static flow table management A new four-tiered architecture that includes cloud, SDN-controller, and fog computing Architecture for keeping computing resources available near the industrial IoT network through edge computing The impact of SDN as an innovative approach for smart city development More. The book will be a valuable resource for SDN researchers as well as academicians, research scholars, and students in the related areas.

Modern systems are an intertwined mesh of human process, physical security, and technology. Attackers are aware of this, commonly leveraging a weakness in one form of security to gain control over an otherwise protected operation. To expose these weaknesses, we need a single unified model that can be used to describe all aspects of the system on equal terms. Designing Secure Systems takes a theory-based approach to concepts underlying all forms of systems - from padlocks, to phishing, to enterprise software architecture. We discuss how weakness in one part of a system creates vulnerability in another, all the while applying standards and frameworks used in the cybersecurity world. Our goal: to analyze the security of the entire system - including people, processes, and technology - using a single model. We begin by describing the core concepts of access, authorization, authentication, and exploitation. We then break authorization down into five interrelated components and describe how these aspects apply to physical, human process, and cybersecurity. Lastly, we discuss how to operate a secure system based on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) concepts of "identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover." Other topics covered in this book include the NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), MITRE Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle (SDL), and the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.

Partnering with HMS: A Guide for App Developers is the first book to introduce readers to the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. It gives developers a fundamental understanding of the ecosystem and how to leverage kit and tool capabilities to make their apps better. This book is also a quick start guide for kit integration and practical environment setup, detailing the functions and principles behind each kit. By demonstrating how to integrate kits, the authors teach these kits by action: Account Kit, IAP, Push Kit, Location Kit, Map Kit, Site Kit, Safety Detect, and FIDO. Readers are fully introduced to how they can use HMS open capabilities to develop quality apps, acquire users, and monetize their hard work. In addition, the ecosystem background - the business model and value chain that underpin the entire ecosystem as well as its privacy compliance framework - is crucial to operations and illustrated in this book.