The explosive growth in data, computational power, and social media creates new opportunities for innovating the processes and solutions of Information and communications technology (ICT) based policy-making and research. To take advantage of these developments in the digital world, new approaches, concepts, instruments and methods are needed to navigate the societal and computational complexity. This requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge of public administration, policy analyses, information systems, complex systems and computer science. This book provides the foundation for this new interdisciplinary field, in which various traditional disciplines are blending. Both policy makers, executors and those in charge of policy implementations acknowledge that ICT is becoming more important and is changing the policy-making process, resulting in a next generation policy-making based on ICT support. Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 point to the specific applications of social networks, semantically enriched and linked data, whereas policy-making has also to do with the use of the vast amount of data, predictions and forecasts, and improving the outcomes of policy-making, which is confronted with an increasing complexity and uncertainty of the outcomes. The field of policy-making is changing and driven by developments like open data, computational methods for processing data, opining mining, simulation and visualization of rich data sets, all combined with public engagement, social media and participatory tools.

The explosive growth in data, computational power, and social media creates new opportunities for innovating the processes and solutions of Information and communications technology (ICT) based policy-making and research. To take advantage of these developments in the digital world, new approaches, concepts, instruments and methods are needed to navigate the societal and computational complexity. This requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge of public administration, policy analyses, information systems, complex systems and computer science. This book provides the foundation for this new interdisciplinary field, in which various traditional disciplines are blending. Both policy makers, executors and those in charge of policy implementations acknowledge that ICT is becoming more important and is changing the policy-making process, resulting in a next generation policy-making based on ICT support. Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 point to the specific applications of social networks, semantically enriched and linked data, whereas policy-making has also to do with the use of the vast amount of data, predictions and forecasts, and improving the outcomes of policy-making, which is confronted with an increasing complexity and uncertainty of the outcomes. The field of policy-making is changing and driven by developments like open data, computational methods for processing data, opining mining, simulation and visualization of rich data sets, all combined with public engagement, social media and participatory tools.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2014, held in Dublin, Ireland, in September 2014. The 26 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: foundations; services and interoperability; policy and stakeholders; open data; and design and values.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2013, held in Koblenz, Germany, in September 2013. The 27 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this volume. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: research foundations; open government data and transparency; service design and improvement; adoption and service evaluation; and social media and social network analysis.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2013, held in Koblenz, Germany, in September 2013. The 13 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of research in both social and technological scientific domains, seeking to demonstrate new theories, concepts, methods and styles of eParticipation with the support of innovative ICT. They have been organized in the following topical sections: research directions, social media and eParticipation, and online deliberation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2012, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in September 2012. The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more then 80 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on foundations; adoption and diffusion; open government and transformation; infrastructure and technology; evaluation; and citizen perspective, social inclusion, and social media.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference, EGOV 2011, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in August/September 2011.
The 38 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 84 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on foundations, acceptance and diffusion, governance, openess and institutions, architecture, security and interoperability, transformation, values and change.

Years of worldwide economic depression do not only shatter private-sector ?rms and strain public-sector budgets, they also test the viability of academic conf- ences and other scholarly events. Given this context it is remarkable how well the eighth EGOV conference maintained its standing as an annual international conference with a global reach. Submissions from Europe increased over those from other parts of the globe. However, the conference upheld its attractiveness toscholarsfromaroundtheworldasavenueofhighreputation.The2009EGOV conference brought together scholars and practitioners from ?ve continents and 32 countries. Previous EGOV conferences were dedicated to three main areas, which ov- lap in part: eGovernment, eGovernance, and eParticipation. While the overlap still exists, a vibrant and sizable community has formed around topics of p- ticipation, inclusion, and democracy in the digital age. For the ?rst time, with ePartthistopicalstrandorganizeditsownconferencewithseparateproceedings. ePartaims to reviewresearchadvances inbothsocialandtechnologicalscienti?c domains, seeking to demonstrate new concepts, methods and styles of eParti- pation. The Chairs of both conferences consider it important to maintain close links and are committed to co-locating the two events in the years to come.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2007, held in Regensburg, Germany in September 2007 in conjunction with DEXA 2007.

The 37 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on research foundations, frameworks and methods, process design and interoperability, electronic services, policies and strategies, assessment and evaluation, participation and democracy, as well as perspectives on e-government.

This book presents the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2006, held in in Krakow, Poland in conjunction with DEXA 2006. The book offers 31 revised papers depicting the state of the art in e-government/ e-governance, arranged in topical sections on research, review and outlook, participation and democracy, designing government services, legal dimensions in e-government, procurement and governance issues in networked governments, and more.

What can economics, the natural and the social sciences learn from each other in better understanding complex forms of change? How far can models, methodologies or metaphors that have been used successfully in one disciplinary field be 'exported' and meaningfully applied to other fields? Distinguished researchers from across the globe assess, in a rare example of successful cross-disciplinary engagement, the explanatory power of chaos theory, new evolutionary theory, path dependency, neo-institutional economics, multiple modernities and historical institutionalism. The book provides an exciting panorama of state of the art thinking and new avenues to combining the power of various traditions of thought.

The annual EGOV conference assesses the state of the art in e-government/ e-governance and provides guidance for research, development and application in this fast-moving ?eld. EGOV 2005 in Copenhagen built on the achievements of the preceding conferences (EGOV 2004 in Zaragoza, EGOV 2003 in Prague, EGOV 2002 in Aix-en-Provence). The EGOV conferences have become a - union for academics and professionals worldwide. In that way, EGOV conf- ences provide both an exchange on the state of a?airs concerning e-government developments and a basis for networking and building the community. EGOV 2005 broughtsome changesin the outline and structure of the conf- ence. In line with the growing number of submissions the conference was more structured and the reviewing process was more formalized, adopting a doub- blind peer-review procedure. The new design of EGOV safeguards the scienti?c quality and guarantees up-to-date information together with a discussion of the state of the art and of emerging themes in the ?eld. Hence EGOV 2005 had both research sections and a workshop part. It comprised completed research and research in progress, workshopandposterpresentations,andaPhDstudentcolloquium.Theproce- ings volume published by Springer, Heidelberg includes the papers presented in the conferencepart. The volumepublished by Trauner,Linz contains the EGOV workshop and poster contributions.

The TCGOV 2005 international conference on e-government was held at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano during March 2-4, 2005. The conference was initiated by the working group "Towards Electronic Democracy" (TED) of the European Science Foundation and was jointly organized by the Free University ofBozen-Bolzano,theMunicipalityofBozen-Bolzano,theTEDWorkingGroup, and the IFIP Working Group 8.5. The conference addressed a large spectrum of issues that are relevant and have to be investigated for a successful transition from the traditional form of government to a new form known as e-government. The main focus was on the following topics: - improving citizen participation and policy making (e-democracy) - government application integration - semantic Web technologies for e-government - security aspects for e-government services Two sessions were dedicated to e-democracy, an emerging area within- government that seeks to enhance democratic processes and provide increased opportunities for individuals and communities to be involved in governmental decisions.Thecontributionsofthesetwosessionscovermorefundamentalresults and insights as well as experiences from di?erent countries. Another focus was on government application integration and the use of - mantic Web technologies, which are important technical aspects on the agenda of e-government research. Di?erent architectures for the integration and orch- tration of distributed services and processes were presented along with two case studies. Three papers about Semantic Web technologies discussed the use of ontologies in e-government.

"We know more than we can tell and we can know nothing without relying upon those things which we may not be able to tell" (Michael Polanyi) The importance of knowledge management (KM) is increasingly recognized in the public sector and in relation with e-government implementations. Because governments and public administrations deal with information and knowledge on a large scale, this domain is particularly predestined to actively practice KM: much of the work of public authorities refers to the elaboration of data, infor- tionandknowledgeoncitizens,businesses,society,themarkets,theenvironment, laws, politics, etc. Evenmany"products"ofpublicadministrationandgovernmentaredelivered intheshapeofinformationandknowledgethemselves.Thisaspectespecially- plies to the policies, management, regulation and monitoring of society, markets and the environment. With the recent evolution of e-government projects, high expectations are linked. As a consequence, e?cient support from adequate KM conceptsandtoolstoexploitthehugeknowledgeandinformationresourcesdealt with in e-government is expected. Not only the trend towards a knowledge society calls for KM solutions. C- rent e-government developments signi?cantly in?uence the public sector. These require the rethinking of knowledge distribution and management: Citizen- and business- oriented service delivery, including one-stop service provision, inter- ganizationalco-operationbetweengovernmentagenciesandcross-bordersupport for complex administrative decision making call for largely opened-up access to remote information and knowledge resources. E-government - and speci?cally the concept of online one-stop government - integrates dislocated information and knowledge sources into a global virtual knowledge fabric.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th IFIP International Working Conference, KMGov 2003, held in Rhodes, Greece in May 2003. The 32 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for presentation. The papers are organized in topical sections on KM concepts for inter-organization cooperation, requirements for KM systems in government, improving government activity through KM, representing governmental knowledge, innovative technologies to support KM, KM tools for public administration, approaching KM solutions, examples of KM in public administration.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2016, held in Guimaraes, Portugal, in September 2016, in conjunction with the 8th International Conference on eParticipation, ePart 2016. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 87 submissions. The papers are clustered under the following topical sections: foundations; benchmarking and evaluation; information integration and governance; services; evaluation and public values; EGOV success and failure; governance; social media; engagement; processes; policy-making; trust, transparency and accountability; open government and big/open data; smart government/governance/cities.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2016, held in Guimaraes, Portugal, in September 5-8, 2016. The 14 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. The papers reflect completed multi-disciplinary research ranging from policy analysis and conceptual modeling to programming and visualization of simulation models. They are organized in four topical threads: theoretical foundations; critical reflections; implementations; policy formulation and modeling.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2015, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in August/September 2015 in conjunction with the 7th International Conference on eParticipation, ePart 2015. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: foundations; open and smart government; services, processes and infrastructure; and application areas and evaluation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2015, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in August/September 2015. The 12 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 19 submissions. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: eParticipation and social media, delibration and consultation, evaluation, and policy formulation and modelling.

The Boron '97 meeting was a great success in summarising all recent developments in basic and applied research on boron's function, especially in plants. New techniques have since been developed and new insight has been gained into the role of boron in plant and animal metabolism. Nevertheless, there were still lots of open questions. The aim of the present workshop held in Bonn as a satellite meeting to the International Plant Nutrition Colloquium was thus to gather all actual information which has been gained since the Boron '97 meeting and to compile knowledge, both from animal and plant sciences. Furthermore, applied aspects had to be addressed too, as there is an increasing awareness of boron deficiencies even in crops such as wheat, which have formerly not been considered as responsive to boron application. Genetic differences in boron demand and efficiency within one species are a further important topic which has gained importance since the 1997 meeting. More in-depth knowledge on the mechanisms of boron efficiency are required as an increased efficiency will be one major possibility to maintain and improve crop yields for resource-poor farmers. Nevertheless, it has also clearly been shown that an adequate supply of boron is needed to obtain high yields of crops with a high quality, and that a sustainable agriculture has to provide an adequate boron supply to compensate for inevitable losses through leaching (especially in the humid tropics and temperate regions) and for the boron removal by the crop.

The Boron '97 meeting was a great success in summarising all recent developments in basic and applied research on boron's function, especially in plants. New techniques have since been developed and new insight has been gained into the role of boron in plant and animal metabolism. Nevertheless, there were still lots of open questions. The aim of the present workshop held in Bonn as a satellite meeting to the International Plant Nutrition Colloquium was thus to gather all actual information which has been gained since the Boron '97 meeting and to compile knowledge, both from animal and plant sciences. Furthermore, applied aspects had to be addressed too, as there is an increasing awareness of boron deficiencies even in crops such as wheat, which have formerly not been considered as responsive to boron application. Genetic differences in boron demand and efficiency within one species are a further important topic which has gained importance since the 1997 meeting. More in-depth knowledge on the mechanisms of boron efficiency are required as an increased efficiency will be one major possibility to maintain and improve crop yields for resource-poor farmers. Nevertheless, it has also clearly been shown that an adequate supply of boron is needed to obtain high yields of crops with a high quality, and that a sustainable agriculture has to provide an adequate boron supply to compensate for inevitable losses through leaching (especially in the humid tropics and temperate regions) and for the boron removal by the crop.

Through these trials and tribulations, The Evolution of Dr. Steve Pratt transforms a young, cocky emergency room doctor into a mature, well-rounded physician. This book is based on characters that I've been writing for a number of years. It seems weird letting these characters out so that they can be enjoyed by others. It's like letting children out to play for the first time by themselves and I'm the nervous mother, watching at a near-by distance. I've been writing this story line with these characters, along with having a full-time job. I teach at Wichita West high school both Health Science and Physical Education. The Health Science class teaches medical career information, which ties in with the content of my book.

Through these trials and tribulations, The Evolution of Dr. Steve Pratt transforms a young, cocky emergency room doctor into a mature, well-rounded physician. This book is based on characters that I've been writing for a number of years. It seems weird letting these characters out so that they can be enjoyed by others. It's like letting children out to play for the first time by themselves and I'm the nervous mother, watching at a near-by distance. I've been writing this story line with these characters, along with having a full-time job. I teach at Wichita West high school both Health Science and Physical Education. The Health Science class teaches medical career information, which ties in with the content of my book.