This book presents research in big data analytics (BDA) for business of all sizes. The authors analyze problems presented in the application of BDA in some businesses through the study of development methodologies based on the three approaches – 1) plan-driven, 2) agile and 3) hybrid lightweight. The authors first describe BDA systems and how they emerged with the convergence of Statistics, Computer Science, and Business Intelligent Analytics with the practical aim to provide concepts, models, methods and tools required for exploiting the wide variety, volume, and velocity of available business internal and external data - i.e. Big Data – and provide decision-making value to decision-makers.  The book presents high-quality conceptual and empirical research-oriented chapters on plan-driven, agile, and hybrid lightweight development methodologies and relevant supporting topics for BDA systems suitable to be used for large-, medium-, and small-sized business organizations.

The highly dynamic world of information technology service management stresses the benefits of the quick and correct implementation of IT services. A disciplined approach relies on a separate set of assumptions and principles as an agile approach, both of which have complicated implementation processes as well as copious benefits. Combining these two approaches to enhance the effectiveness of each, while difficult, can yield exceptional dividends. Balancing Agile and Disciplined Engineering and Management Approaches for IT Services and Software Products is an essential publication that focuses on clarifying theoretical foundations of balanced design methods with conceptual frameworks and empirical cases. Highlighting a broad range of topics including business trends, IT service, and software development, this book is ideally designed for software engineers, software developers, programmers, information technology professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.

In recent years, the focus of environmental responsibility has shifted toward companies and a variety of highly specific, heterogeneous solutions for different environmental issues have been created. These solutions comprise a special category of information systems, termed Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems (CEMIS). Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems: Advancements and Trends addresses the continuing need for companies to take a holistic and strategic approach towards material and energy efficiency, emission and waste reduction, recycling, stakeholder engagement, and legal compliance. As Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems that support only operational goals are becoming obsolete, the need for a reference redefining these systems to provide integrated solutions to environmental and economic problems is needed.

This book is based on the work of the YEEES Research Centre, an international network of scientists from partner universities in Germany, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa. It presents inter- and transdisciplinary research that explores different ways of understanding resilience, an essential characteristic for systems, organizations and people - providing them with strength in the face of attacks and challenges, and both enabling and fostering constant adaptation and improvement. Building resilience to face today's ever-changing societal and environmental realities requires unbiased research activities that transcend the borders of countries and academic disciplines alike. The research addressed in this book, thus, is multidisciplinary and includes contributions to areas such as sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and smart communities, as well as groundbreaking work on skills development and ICT education. Highlighting the variety of research activities and their outcomes, this book offers a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in the fields of sustainable resilience development.

This book presents the outcomes of the trans- and interdisciplinary research project NEMo (Nachhaltige Erfullung von Mobilitatsbedurfnissen im landlichen Raum - Sustainable Fulfilment of Mobility Needs in Rural Areas). Due to demographic change, it is becoming increasingly difficult for rural districts and communities to maintain a basic set of public transport services such as bus and train transit without encountering issues regarding necessary social participation, sensible regional value creation and, last but not least, achievable environmental protection goals. At the same time, the demand for mobility in rural areas will continue to rise in the future, e.g. due to the concentration of medical care facilities and shopping centres close to cities. Focusing on the development of sustainable and innovative mobility services and business models, this book explains how new mobility offers can be created in which citizens themselves become mobility providers. To do so, it combines the findings of the individual research groups with external contributions from science and practice.

This book constitutes a valuable manual for young and seasoned business researchers alike, and provides a comprehensive summary for the whole research journey. It is a must-read for all researchers who need to understand the basics of business research, from identifying research topics, to planning and organizing the research process, and selecting the most appropriate methodology for the topic at hand. This book also provides insights on how to avoid common pitfalls in business research and outlines the research skills needed to write a fine piece of research. In order to capture the innovative element of research, the book also highlights methods for thinking outside the box. It also stresses the importance of respecting ethics while conducting business research. Lastly, it presents important cases and provides hands-on training for preparing survey tools. Readers looking to master business research won't want to miss out on this unique and insightful book.

This book presents the latest findings and ongoing research in the field of green information systems and green information and communication technology (ICT). It provides insights into a whole range of cross-cutting topics in ICT and environmental sciences as well as showcases how information and communication technologies allow environmental and energy efficiency issues to be handled effectively. The papers presented in this book are a selection of extended and improved contributions to the 28th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection dedicated to ICT for energy efficiency. This book is essential and particularly worth reading for those who already gained basic knowledge and want to deepen and extend their expertise in the subjects mentioned above.

This book presents new concepts as well as practical applications and experiences in the field of information technology for environmental engineering. The book has three main focus areas: firstly, it shows how information technologies can be employed to support natural resource management and conservation, environmental engineering, scientific simulation and integrated assessment studies. Secondly, it demonstrates the application of computing in the everyday practices of environmental engineers, natural scientists, economists and social scientists. And thirdly, it demonstrates how the complexity of natural phenomena can be approached using interdisciplinary methods, where computer science offers the infrastructure needed for environmental data collection and management, scientific simulations, decision support documentation and reporting.The book collects selected papers presented at the 7th International Symposium on Environmental Engineering, held in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in July 2015. It discusses recent success stories in eco-informatics, promising ideas and new challenges from the interdisciplinary viewpoints of computer scientists, environmental engineers, economists and social scientists, demonstrating new paradigms for problem-solving and decision-making.

This book is the result of the first International Conference ICT Innovations 2009. The ICT Innovations conference is the primary scientific action of the Macedonian Society on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT-ACT). It promotes the publication of scientific results of the international community related to innovative fundamental and applied research in ICT. Today, ICT has enlarged its horizons and it is practiced under multidisciplinary contexts that introduce new challenges to theore- cal and technical approaches. The ICT Innovations 2009 conference gathered academics, professionals and pr- titioners reporting their valuable experiences in developing solutions and systems in the industrial and business arena especially innovative commercial implementations, novel applications of technology, and experience in applying recent research advances to practical situations, in any ICT areas. The conference focuses on issues concerning a variety of ICT fields like: * Multimedia Information Systems * Artificial Intelligence * Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing * Eco and Bio Informatics * Internet and Web Applications and Services * Wireless and Mobile Communications and Services * Computer Networks, Security and Cryptography * Distributed Systems, GRID and Cloud Computing ICT Innovations 2009 Conference was held in Ohrid, Macedonia, in September 28-30, 2009. Local arrangements provided by the members of the Macedonian Society on Information and Communication Technologies - ICT-ACT, mainly consisting of teaching and research staff of Computer Science Department at Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies and Institute of Informatics at Faculty of Natural Sciences, both at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia.

Corporate success has been changed by the importance of new developments in Business Analytics (BA) and furthermore by the support of computational intelligence- based techniques. This book opens a new avenues in these subjects, identifies key developments and opportunities. The book will be of interest for students, researchers and professionals to identify innovative ways delivered by Business Analytics based on computational intelligence solutions. They help elicit information, handle knowledge and support decision-making for more informed and reliable decisions even under high uncertainty environments.Computational Intelligence for Business Analytics has collected the latest technological innovations in the field of BA to improve business models related to Group Decision-Making, Forecasting, Risk Management, Knowledge Discovery, Data Breach Detection, Social Well-Being, among other key topics related to this field.

"This monograph contains recent studies in eco-informatics, promising ideas "

"and new challenges in information management for supporting sustainability in"

"companies and other organization. The scope of this book includes sets of"

"solutions which show different stakeholders viewpoints on sustainability. ""In individual chapters, authors discuss the role which Environmental"

"Information Systems (EIS) play in the environmental conscious functioning of"

"enterprise. New models, methods and tools supporting sustainability are"

"presented. Emphasis is placed on the innovative approach to eco-friendly"

"organization and coordination of transport, logistics processes and operations"

"management. The information management and decision making in"

"manufacturing and service organizations is highlighted."

"The scope of this monograph also encompasses topics related to the modeling"

"and monitoring of climate change.""

"

Intelligent Decision-Making Support Systems (i-DMSS) are specialized IT-based systems that support some or several phases of the individual, team, organizational or inter-organizational decision making process by deploying some or several intelligent mechanisms. This book pursues the following academic aims: (i) generate a compendium of quality theoretical and applied contributions in Intelligent Decision-Making Support Systems (i-DMSS) for engineering and management IT-based service systems (ITSS); (ii) diffuse scarce knowledge about foundations, architectures and effective and efficient methods and strategies for successfully planning, designing, building, operating, and evaluating i-DMSS for ITSS, and (iii) create an awareness of, and a bridge between ITSS and i-DMSS academicians and practitioners in the current complex and dynamic engineering and management ITSS organizational. The book presents a collection of 11 chapters referring to relevant topics for both IT service systems and i-DMSS including: problems of selection of IT service providers, optimization of supply chain systems, IT governance decisions, clinical decision support, dynamic user-interface adaptation, re-engineering of processes, and generic decision problems. Advanced IT technologies used in some chapters are: fuzzy multi-criteria mechanisms, semantic processing, data mining processing, and rough sets. Other chapters report traditional DSS mechanisms but used or suggested to be used in innovative mode for IT service engineering and management tasks.

This proceedings volume brings together the results of a corporate discussion on research, academic teaching and education in the field of business and economics in the context of globalization. The contributions examine leadership and sustainability, quality and governance and the internationalization of higher education. With a particular focus on business education and business schools, the book discusses the labor market and modernization as well as contemporary trends and challenges. By including both academic papers and contributions from industry, it forges research links between academia, business and industry.

Increasing environmental concerns demand interdisciplinary approaches enabling engineers, natural scientists, economists and computer scientists to work together. Information technology is vital to all scientists involved in environmental engineering, covering modeling and simulation, information systems, formal methods and data processing techniques, tools and measurement techniques. This book presents the proceedings of the ITEE 07 conference, where new concepts as well as practical applications and experiences in environmental engineering were presented and discussed.

The book provides a collection of individual chapters from the participants in the OEPI project, which represent a mix of academic and practical chapters and contributions. The first part of the book is dedicated to a theoretical introduction to Organisations' Environmental Performance Indicators and to a state-of-the-art overview in literature and practice. The second part of the book contains several chapters describing information systems and their components supporting the management of Environmental Performance Indicators, especially in inter-organizational contexts. The third part is dedicated to three case studies from practice, and the book concludes with part four, in which practical guidelines for the innovative management of Environmental Performance indicators in organizations and in inter-organizational contexts are presented.

Information technologies have evolved to an enabling science for natural resource management and conservation, environmental engineering, scientific simulation and integrated assessment studies. Computing plays a significant role in the every day practices of environmental engineers, natural scientists, economists, and social scientists. The complexity of natural phenomena requires interdisciplinary approaches, where computing science offers the infrastructure for environmental data collection and management, scientific simulations, decision support, documentation and reporting. Ecology, environmental engineering and natural resource management comprise an excellent real-world testbed for IT system demonstration, while presenting new challenges for computer science. Complexity, uncertainty and scaling issues of natural systems constitute a demanding application domain for modelling, simulation and scientific workflows, data management and reporting, decision support and intelligent systems, distributed computing environments, geographical information systems, heterogeneous systems integration, software engineering, accounting systems, control systems, as well as sustainable manufacturing and reverse logistics. This books offers a collection of papers presented at the 6th International Conference on Environmental Engineering, held in July 2013, in Luneburg, Germany. Recent success stories in ecoinformatics, promising ideas and new challenges are discussed among computer scientists, environmental engineers, industrial engineers, economists and social scientists, demonstrating new paradigms for problem solving and decision making.

Sustainable development is based on the idea that societies should advance without compromising their future development requirements. This book explores how the application of data analytics and digital technologies can ensure that development changes are executed on the basis of factual data and information. It addresses how innovations that rely on digital technologies can support sustainable development across all sectors and all social, economic, and environmental aspects and help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The book also highlights techniques, processes, models, tools, and practices used to achieve sustainable development through data analysis. The various topics covered in this book are critically evaluated, not only theoretically, but also from an application perspective. It will be of interest to researchers and students, especially those in the fields of applied data analytics, business intelligence and knowledge management.

This book presents case studies to analyse the relationship between sustainability - environmental, social, institutional and economic - and digital innovation. The respective contributions offer a contextualisation of the main present and future trends concerning these two elements, and present analyses from economic, technical, managerial, and social perspectives alike. The individual sections of the book focus on interactions between sustainability and digital innovation in existing organisations and highlight the new opportunities, challenges and threats that may emerge as a result. The contributions are mainly based on case studies and research conducted in Europe and Africa, with a few focusing on Southeast Asia and Central America, and were prepared by experts in the fields of Information Systems, Computer Science, Social Development, and Economics.

Information technologies have evolved to an enabling science for natural resource management and conservation, environmental engineering, scientific simulation and integrated assessment studies. Computing plays a significant role in every day practices of environmental engineers, natural scientists, economists, and social scientists. The complexity of natural phenomena requires interdisciplinary approaches, where computing science offers the infrastructure for environmental data collection and management, scientific simulations, decision support documentation and reporting.

Ecology, environmental engineering and natural resource management comprise an excellent real-world testbed for IT system demonstration, while raising new challenges for computer science. Complexity, uncertainty and scaling issues of natural systems form a demanding application domain for sensor networks and earth observation systems; modelling, simulation and scientific workflows, data management and reporting, decision support and intelligent systems, distributed computing environments, geographical information systems, heterogeneous systems integration, software engineering, accounting systems and control systems.

This books offers a collection of papers presented at the 4th International Symposium on Environmental Engineering, held in May 2009, in Thessaloniki, Greece. Recent success stories in ecoinformatics, promising ideas and new challenges are discussed among computer scientists, environmental engineers, economists and social scientists, demonstrating new paradigms for problem solving and decision making.

This book presents the outcomes of the trans- and interdisciplinary research project NEMo (Nachhaltige Erfullung von Mobilitatsbedurfnissen im landlichen Raum - Sustainable Fulfilment of Mobility Needs in Rural Areas). Due to demographic change, it is becoming increasingly difficult for rural districts and communities to maintain a basic set of public transport services such as bus and train transit without encountering issues regarding necessary social participation, sensible regional value creation and, last but not least, achievable environmental protection goals. At the same time, the demand for mobility in rural areas will continue to rise in the future, e.g. due to the concentration of medical care facilities and shopping centres close to cities. Focusing on the development of sustainable and innovative mobility services and business models, this book explains how new mobility offers can be created in which citizens themselves become mobility providers. To do so, it combines the findings of the individual research groups with external contributions from science and practice.

This proceedings volume brings together the results of a corporate discussion on research, academic teaching and education in the field of business and economics in the context of globalization. The contributions examine leadership and sustainability, quality and governance and the internationalization of higher education. With a particular focus on business education and business schools, the book discusses the labor market and modernization as well as contemporary trends and challenges. By including both academic papers and contributions from industry, it forges research links between academia, business and industry.

This book presents the latest findings and ongoing research in the field of green information systems and green information and communication technology (ICT). It provides insights into a whole range of cross-cutting topics in ICT and environmental sciences as well as showcases how information and communication technologies allow environmental and energy efficiency issues to be handled effectively. The papers presented in this book are a selection of extended and improved contributions to the 28th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection dedicated to ICT for energy efficiency. This book is essential and particularly worth reading for those who already gained basic knowledge and want to deepen and extend their expertise in the subjects mentioned above.

This book presents new concepts as well as practical applications and experiences in the field of information technology for environmental engineering. The book has three main focus areas: firstly, it shows how information technologies can be employed to support natural resource management and conservation, environmental engineering, scientific simulation and integrated assessment studies. Secondly, it demonstrates the application of computing in the everyday practices of environmental engineers, natural scientists, economists and social scientists. And thirdly, it demonstrates how the complexity of natural phenomena can be approached using interdisciplinary methods, where computer science offers the infrastructure needed for environmental data collection and management, scientific simulations, decision support documentation and reporting.The book collects selected papers presented at the 7th International Symposium on Environmental Engineering, held in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in July 2015. It discusses recent success stories in eco-informatics, promising ideas and new challenges from the interdisciplinary viewpoints of computer scientists, environmental engineers, economists and social scientists, demonstrating new paradigms for problem-solving and decision-making.

Information technologies have evolved to an enabling science for natural resource management and conservation, environmental engineering, scientific simulation and integrated assessment studies. Computing plays a significant role in the every day practices of environmental engineers, natural scientists, economists, and social scientists. The complexity of natural phenomena requires interdisciplinary approaches, where computing science offers the infrastructure for environmental data collection and management, scientific simulations, decision support, documentation and reporting. Ecology, environmental engineering and natural resource management comprise an excellent real-world testbed for IT system demonstration, while presenting new challenges for computer science. Complexity, uncertainty and scaling issues of natural systems constitute a demanding application domain for modelling, simulation and scientific workflows, data management and reporting, decision support and intelligent systems, distributed computing environments, geographical information systems, heterogeneous systems integration, software engineering, accounting systems, control systems, as well as sustainable manufacturing and reverse logistics. This books offers a collection of papers presented at the 6th International Conference on Environmental Engineering, held in July 2013, in Luneburg, Germany. Recent success stories in ecoinformatics, promising ideas and new challenges are discussed among computer scientists, environmental engineers, industrial engineers, economists and social scientists, demonstrating new paradigms for problem solving and decision making.

The book provides a collection of individual chapters from the participants in the OEPI project, which represent a mix of academic and practical chapters and contributions. The first part of the book is dedicated to a theoretical introduction to Organisations' Environmental Performance Indicators and to a state-of-the-art overview in literature and practice. The second part of the book contains several chapters describing information systems and their components supporting the management of Environmental Performance Indicators, especially in inter-organizational contexts. The third part is dedicated to three case studies from practice, and the book concludes with part four, in which practical guidelines for the innovative management of Environmental Performance indicators in organizations and in inter-organizational contexts are presented.