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E-democracy does not only affect the content but also the organizational form of electronic-based participation. Under the aspect of the organizational form , web applications do not appear as neutral media or communication tools, but as instruments of coordination and control of actions. Under the aspect of the organizational form , e-democracy is also a coordinating principle of the co-equal , self-organized and decentralized coordination of action. The counter-concept is the principle of hierarchy as unequal, heteronomous and centralized coordination (Helmut Willke). Both principles can be identified in software engineering concepts and approaches.

Since GPS receivers have become a commodity anyone could access and use location information simply and freely. Such an easy access to one’s location is instrumental to the development of location-aware applications. However, existing applications are static in that they do not model relations between places and mobile things. Moreover, these applications do not allow to easily map the physical location of mobile devices to virtual resources on the Internet. We attempt to bridge this gap by extending the base concepts that make up the Internet with the physical location of devices, in order to facilitate the development of Web-based location-aware applications for embedded mobile devices. In this chapter, we propose a simple infrastructure for the “Web of Things” that extends the existing Web to enable location-aware applications. The proposed solution enables a naturally hierarchic way to search for location-aware devices and the services they provide.

Wir freuen uns: Das Internet wird wieder richtig Spass machen. Das Netz wird farbiger, bewegter und interaktiver werden. Die Zeiten des Surfens in seichten Click-and-wait-Gewässern sind vorbei. Endlich können wir uns ohne störende Hilfsmittel dem ungebremsten Wellenritt hingeben. HTML 5 macht’s möglich.

Web Services have experienced great interest during the last years as they were expected to play a key role as enablers of seamless application-to-application integration both within company boundaries and on a global, cross-organizational scale. As a technical foundation for the realization of Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs), Web Services encapsulate complexity inherent to individual applications and allow for their loose coupling. However, a truly global mesh of such services has not yet become reality due to various reasons. Novel technologies and design principles are currently about to emerge which allow human users to use, customize, combine, interconnect and finally expose Web-based content or functionality as new resources which are often referred to as Mash-ups. In this article, we provide an overview of existing Mash-ups as well as tools and platforms that empower users to build them in a highly efficient and intuitive fashion. Statistical data and case studies are leveraged to examine new ways of resource provision and consumption and also the relevance of upcoming intermediaries. Finally, we investigate remaining research challenges on the path to a truly global SOA. The Conference: http://conferences.computer.org/scc/2007/ Services now account for more than half of the U.S. economy. Services Computing, as a new cross discipline, addresses how to enable IT technology to help people perform business services more efficiently and effectively. Building on its great success in 2004, 2005, and 2006, The 2007 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC 2007) continues to bridge the gap between Services Computing and Business models with an emerging suite of ground-breaking technology that includes service-oriented architecture, business process integration and management, grid/utility/autonomic computing, and Web 2.0. The theme of SCC 2007 is "Services: Science, Technology, and Business". SCC 2007 will be co-located with the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2007). Both ICWS 2007 and SCC 2007 are the flagship conferences in 2007 IEEE Congress on Services (SERVICES 2007) to celebrate their third gathering along with other events to explore "Services" (Science and Technology), which was promoted by IEEE Computer Society in 2003! IEEE Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) Industry Summit, IEEE International Services Computing Contest, IEEE SOA Standards Symposium, IEEE Services Computing Workshops, IEEE Services Computing Ph.D. Student Symposium will be featured at this joint event. Services Computing, as a new cross discipline, addresses how to enable IT and computing technology to help people perform business processes, services, and applications more efficiently and effectively. At the core of a business model is a set of processes that jointly help yield a profit in an organization. As we can see, Services Computing currently shapes the thinking of business modeling, business consulting, solution creation, service delivery, and software architecture design, development and deployment. The global nature of Services Computing leads to many opportunities and few challenges and creates a new networked economic structure for supporting different business models. SCC 2007 has the following three major research tracks: Foundations of Services Computing, Services-Centric Business Models, and Business Process Integration and Management. SCC 2007 is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Services Computing. SCC 2004 was held in Shanghai, China, September 15-18, 2004 . SCC 2005 was co-located with ICWS 2005 on July 11-15, 2005 in Orlando, Florida, USA. SCC 2006 was co-located with ICWS 2006 on September 18-22, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The SCC Proceedings has been included in EI Compendex. SCC 2007 will concentrate on the science and technology of Business/Application Services and the bridging technologies such as Business Strategy and Design, Business Process Integration and Management, Grid and Utility Computing, and SOA Services and Solutions; while ICWS 2007 will continue to put its focus on all aspects of Web services from Computer Science and Engineering perspectives. http://www.christoph-schroth.de/

Users of Web-based software encounter growing complexity of the software resulting from the increasing amount of information and service offering. As a consequence, the likelihood that users employ the software in a manner compatible with the provider's interest decreases. Depending on the purpose of the Web application, a provider's goal can be to guide and influence user choices in information and service selection, or to assure user productivity. An approach at addressing these goals is to adapt the software's behavior during operation to the context in which it is being used. The term context-awareness originates in mobile computing, where research projects have studied context recognition and adaptation in specific scenarios. Context-awareness is now being studied in a variety of systems, including Web applications. However, how to account for context in a Web Engineering process is not yet established, nor is a generic means of using context in a Web software architecture. This dissertation addresses the question of how context-awareness can be applied in a general-purpose, systematic process for Web application development: that is, in a Web Engineering process. A model for representing an application's context factors in ontologies is presented. A general-purpose methodology for Web Engineering is extended to account for context, by putting in relation context ontologies with elements of the application domain. The application model is extended with adaptation specifications, defining at which places in the application adaptation to context is to occur, and according to what strategy. Application and context models are system interpretable, in order to support automatic adaptation of a system's behavior during its operation, that is, consequently to user requests. Requirements for a corresponding Web software architecture for context are established first at the conceptual level, then specifically in a content-based architecture based on an XML stack. The CATWALK software framework, an implementation of an architecture enabling adaptation to context is described. The framework provides mechanisms for interpreting application and context models to generate an adaptive application, meaning to generate responses to user requests, where the generation process makes decisions based on context information. For this purpose, the framework contains default implementations for context recognition and adaptation mechanisms. The approach presented supports a model-based development of Web applications which adapt to context. The CATWALK framework is an mplementation for model interpretation in a run-time system and thus simplifies the development of Web applications which adapt to context. As the framework is component-based and follows a strict separation of concerns, the default mechanisms can be extended or replaced, allowing to reduce the amount of custom code required to implement specific context-aware Web applications or to study alternative context inference or adaptation strategies. The use of the framework is illustrated in a case study, in which models are defined for a prototypical application, and this application is generated by the framework. The purpose of the case study is to illustrate effects of adaptation to context, based on context description and adaptation specifications in the application model.

Strong user involvement and clear business objectives, both relying on efficient communication between the developers and the business, are key factors for a project's success. Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) being simple, highly-focused and tailored to a clear problem domain are a promising alternative to heavy-weight modeling approaches in the field of Web Engineering. Thus, they enable stakeholders to validate, modify and even develop parts of a distributed Web-based solution.

Establishing efficient and intensive stakeholder collaboration is a key factor in Web application development projects. Therefore, the form of collaboration needs to be shifted from simple conversation to valuable contribution, i.e. empowering stakeholders to directly contribute to the development effort. To achieve this, we introduce an approach combining Domain-specific Languages and an underlying technical platform.