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Good design is enabling, and each and every one of us is a designer. Universal Design is widely recognized an important concept that should be incorporated in all person-centred policies. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) clearly stipulates that the most effective way of delivering on the promise of an inclusive society is through a Universal Design approach. Sitting at the intersection of the fields of Higher Education and Universal Design, this book presents papers delivered at the Universal Design and Higher Education in Transformation Congress (UDHEIT2018), held in Dublin, Ireland, from 30 October to 2 November 2018. This event brings together key experts from industry, education, and government and non-government organization sectors to share experiences and knowledge with all participants. The 86 papers included here are grouped under 17 headings, or themes, ranging from education and digital learning through healthcare to engagement with industry and urban design. Celebrating and integrating all that is good in design, diversity and education, this book will be a valuable resource for all those interested in the inspiring and empowering developments in both Universal Design and higher education.

Robots are predicted to play a role in many aspects of our lives in the future, affecting work, personal relationships, education, business, law, medicine and the arts. As they become increasingly intelligent, autonomous, and communicative, they will be able to function in ever more complex physical and social surroundings, transforming the practices, organizations, and societies in which they are embedded. This book presents the proceedings of the Robophilosophy 2018 conference, held in Vienna, Austria, from 14 to 7 February 2018. The third event in the Robophilosophy Conference Series, the conference was entitled Envisioning Robots in Society – Politics, Power, and Public Space. It focused on the societal, economic, and political issues related to social robotics. The book is divided into two parts and an Epilogue. Part I, entitled Keynotes, contains abstracts of the keynotes and two longer papers. Part II is divided into 7 subject sections containing 37 papers. Subjects covered include robots in public spaces; politics and law; work and business; military robotics; and policy. The book provides an overview of the questions, answers, and approaches that are currently at the heart of both academic and public discussions. The contributions collected here will be of interest to researchers and policy makers alike, as well as other stakeholders.

It is indisputable that information technology plays an ever-increasing role in the delivery of healthcare, and quality improvement is a crucial element in this constantly changing environment of providing nursing care with the help of advanced technology. This book presents papers from the 14th International Congress on Nursing and Allied Health Informatics (NI 2018), held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in June 2018. The theme of the conference – Information and Communication Technology to Improve Quality & Safety at the Point of Care – stresses the increasing importance of the role played by technology in modern healthcare, and the topics featured here cover the use of information and communication technologies for nursing and all allied healthcare professionals in the form of papers, posters, panels and workshops. The book will be of interest to all those professionals who must navigate the ever-changing world of modern healthcare delivery.

The most powerful computers work by harnessing the combined computational power of millions of processors, and exploiting the full potential of such large-scale systems is something which becomes more difficult with each succeeding generation of parallel computers. Alternative architectures and computer paradigms are increasingly being investigated in an attempt to address these difficulties. Added to this, the pervasive presence of heterogeneous and parallel devices in consumer products such as mobile phones, tablets, personal computers and servers also demands efficient programming environments and applications aimed at small-scale parallel systems as opposed to large-scale supercomputers. This book presents a selection of papers presented at the conference: Parallel Computing (ParCo2017), held in Bologna, Italy, on 12 to 15 September 2017. The conference included contributions about alternative approaches to achieving High Performance Computing (HPC) to potentially surpass exa- and zetascale performances, as well as papers on the application of quantum computers and FPGA processors. These developments are aimed at making available systems better capable of solving intensive computational scientific/engineering problems such as climate models, security applications and classic NP-problems, some of which cannot currently be managed by even the most powerful supercomputers available. New areas of application, such as robotics, AI and learning systems, data science, the Internet of Things (IoT), and in-car systems and autonomous vehicles were also covered. As always, ParCo2017 attracted a large number of notable contributions covering present and future developments in parallel computing, and the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.

FOIS is the flagship conference of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA). Its interdisciplinary research focus lies at the intersection of philosophical ontology, linguistics, logic, cognitive science, and computer science, as well as in the applications of ontological analysis to conceptual modeling, knowledge engineering, knowledge management, information-systems development, library and information science, scientific research, and semantic technologies in general. This volume presents the proceedings of FOIS 2018, held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 19-21 September. It was the 10th edition and 20th anniversary of the conference series. The volume contains 19 papers grouped into 4 sections: Foundations (7 papers), Agents and Properties (4 papers), Methods and Tools (4 papers), and Applications (4 papers). Regarding the applications of ontologies, a broad spectrum of areas is covered, including in particular biology and medicine, IoT, engineering and linguistics. Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (FOIS 2018) will be of interest to researchers from all disciplines with an interest in formal ontology.

In its classical form, the study of argumentation focuses on human-oriented uses of argument, such as whether an argument is legitimate or flawed, engagement in debate, or the rhetorical aspects of argumentation. In recent decades, however, the study of logic and computational models of argumentation has emerged as a growing sub-area of AI. This book presents the Seventh International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA'18), held in Warsaw, Poland, from 12 to 14 September 2018. Since its inception in 2006, the conference and its related activities have developed alongside the steady growth of interest in computational argumentation worldwide, and the selection of 25 full papers and 17 short papers, out of a total of 70 submissions, and 15 demonstration abstracts included here reflect the broad multidisciplinary nature of argumentation and the increasing body of work which establishes the relevance of computational models to various disciplines and real world applications. Subjects covered include: algorithm development; innovative applications; argument mining, argumentation-based models of dialogue; abstract argument frameworks; and structured argumentation. Representing an overview of current developments in the field, this book will appeal to all those with an interest in computational models of argument.

Paragraph 10 of the Security Environment section of the NATO Strategic Concept adopted in 2010 clearly defines terrorism as ‘a direct threat to the security of the citizens of NATO countries, and to international stability and prosperity more broadly'. Terrorist attacks in Turkey, France, Belgium, Germany, Canada and the United States have demonstrated both the vulnerability of NATO members to terrorist activity and the need to strengthen security cooperation with countries of both the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI). This book presents papers delivered at the NATO Advanced Training Course (ATC) ‘Countering Terrorism and Urban Warfare', held in Herzliya, Israel, in November 2017. Course participants from both the military and the civilian sectors shared theoretical and practical best practice in the countering of terrorism in an urban warfare context, and the 10 papers included here cover topics such as protecting the civilian population in urban combat areas; terrorists logic behind the choice of target; what Europe can learn from its southern neighbors; countering hybrid threats in megacities and densely populated urban areas; and where will ISIS regroup? The book will be of interest to all those concerned with the countering of terrorism, particularly in urban areas.

Advances in digital and information technology have meant that medical informatics and its associated fields are of ever-increasing importance in the modern healthcare environment. This book presents selected papers from the 63rd annual conference of the German Society of Medical Information Sciences, Biometry, and Epidemiology, GMDS 2018, held in Osnabrück, Germany, in September 2018. The society encompasses not only medical informatics, biometry and epidemiology, but also medical bioinformatics, systems biology and health data management. The title of this year's conference is “The Learning Health System: Research Based, Innovative, Connecting”, and 38 full papers of the 164 oral presentations and 65 posters delivered at the conference are included here. A wide variety of scientific topics are covered, including standards to enable the interoperable interchange of information; metadata management; record linkage; IT issues for health care networks; interprofessional teaching and training; eHealth legislation; analysis of miRNAs and RNA-Seq data, among others. The contributors are all specialists in their field, and this book disseminates some of the innovative ideas which are urgently needed to meet the challenges facing a constantly developing digital healthcare environment.

Industry and government are increasingly reliant on an intelligent – or ‘smart'– and interconnected computer infrastructure, but the reality is that it is extremely difficult to provide full cyber defense and/or intrusion prevention for the smart networks that connect intelligent industrial and logistics modules, since the more intelligent the systems are, the more vulnerable they become. This book presents papers from the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on Cyber Defence in Industry 4.0 Systems and Related Logistics and IT Infrastructures, held in Jyvaskyla, Finland, in October 2017. The main focus of the 11 papers included here is the creation and implementation of cyber systems and cyber platforms capable of providing enhanced cyber security and interoperability for smart IT infrastructure. Topics covered include: smart intrusion prevention; adaptive cyber defense; smart recovery of systems; and the smart monitoring, control and management of Industry 4.0 complexes and related logistics systems such as robotic equipment, logistics modules, units and technologic equipment, as well as their IT infrastructure.

The concept of concurrent engineering (CE) was first developed in the 1980s. Now often referred to as transdiciplinary engineering, it is based on the idea that different phases of a product life cycle should be conducted concurrently and initiated as early as possible within the Product Creation Process (PCP). The main goal of CE is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the PCP and reduce errors in later phases, as well as incorporating considerations – including environmental implications – for the full lifecycle of the product. It has become a substantive methodology in many industries, and has also been adopted in the development of new services and service support. This book presents the proceedings of the 25th ISPE Inc. International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering, held in Modena, Italy, in July 2018. This international conference attracts researchers, industry experts, students, and government representatives interested in recent transdisciplinary engineering research, advancements and applications. The book contains 120 peer-reviewed papers, selected from 259 submissions from all continents of the world, ranging from the theoretical and conceptual to papers addressing industrial best practice, and is divided into 11 sections reflecting the themes addressed in the conference program and addressing topics as diverse as industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing; human-centered design; modeling, simulation and virtual design; and knowledge and data management among others. With an overview of the latest research results, product creation processes and related methodologies, this book will be of interest to researchers, design practitioners and educators alike.

Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are based on natural language and apply restrictions on vocabulary, grammar, and/or semantics. They fall broadly into 3 groups. Some are designed to improve communication for non-native speakers of the respective natural language; in others, the restrictions are to facilitate the use of computers to analyze texts, for example, to improve computer-aided translation; and a third group of CNLs are designed to enable reliable automated reasoning and formal knowledge representation from seemingly natural texts. This book presents the 11 papers, selected from 14 submitted, and delivered at the sixth in the series of workshops on Controlled Natural Language, (CNL 2018), held in Maynooth, Ireland, in August 2018. The papers cover a full spectrum of controlled natural languages, ranging from human oriented to machine-processable controlled languages and from more theoretical results to interfaces, reasoning engines, and the real-life application of CNLs. The book will be of interest to all those working with controlled natural language, whatever their approach.

Biomedical engineering and health informatics are closely related to each other, and it is often difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins, but ICT systems in healthcare and biomedical systems and devices are already becoming increasingly interconnected, and share the common entity of data. This is something which is set to become even more prevalent in future, and will complete the chain and flow of information from the sensor, via processing, to the actuator, which may be anyone or anything from a human healthcare professional to a robot. Methods for automating the processing of information, such as signal processing, machine learning, predictive analytics and decision support, are increasingly important for providing actionable information and supporting personalized and preventive healthcare protocols in both biomedical and digital healthcare systems and applications. This book of proceedings presents 50 papers from the 12th eHealth conference, eHealth2018, held in Vienna, Austria, in May 2018. The theme of this year's conference is Biomedical Meets eHealth – From Sensors to Decisions, and the papers included here cover a wide range of topics from the field of eHealth. The book will be of interest to all those working to design and implement healthcare today.

The domain of eHealth faces ongoing challenges to deliver 21st century healthcare. Digitalization, capacity building and user engagement with truly interdisciplinary and cross-domain collaboration are just a few of the areas which must be addressed. This book presents 190 full papers from the Medical Informatics Europe (MIE 2018) conference, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, in April 2018. The MIE conferences aim to enable close interaction and networking between an international audience of academics, health professionals, patients and industry partners. The title of this year's conference is: Building Continents of Knowledge in Oceans of Data – The Future of Co-Created eHealth, and contributions cover a broad range of topics related to the digitalization of healthcare, citizen participation, data science, and changing health systems, addressed from the perspectives of citizens, patients and their families, healthcare professionals, service providers, developers and policy makers. The second part of the title in particular has attracted a large number of papers describing strategies to create, evaluate, adjust or deliver tools and services for improvements in healthcare organizations or to enable citizens to respond to the challenges of dealing with health systems. Papers are grouped under the headings: standards and interoperability, implementation and evaluation, knowledge management, decision support, modeling and analytics, health informatics education and learning systems, and patient-centered services. Attention is also given to development for sustainable use, educational strategies and workforce development, and the book will be of interest to both developers and practitioners of healthcare services.

In 1974, a scientific conference covering marine automation group and large vessels issues was organized under the patronage of the Technical Naval Studies Centre (CETENA) and the Italian National Research Council (CNR). A later collaboration with the Marine Technical Association (ATENA) led to the renaming of the conference as NAV, extending the topics covered to the technical field previously covered by ATENA national conferences. The NAV conference is now held every 3 years, and attracts specialists from all over the world. This book presents the proceedings of NAV 2018, held in Trieste, Italy, in June 2018. The book contains 70 scientific papers, 35 technical papers and 16 reviews, and subjects covered include: comfort on board; conceptual and practical ship design; deep sea mining and marine robotics; protection of the environment; renewable marine energy; design and engineering of offshore vessels; digitalization, unmanned vehicles and cyber security; yacht and pleasure craft design and inland waterway vessels. With its comprehensive coverage of scientific and technical maritime issues, the book will be of interest to all those involved in this important industry.

Over recent years there has been major investment in research infrastructure to harness the potential of routinely collected health data. In 2013, The Farr Institute for Health Informatics Research was established in the UK, undertaking health informatics research to enhance patient and public health by the analysis of data from multiple sources and unleashing the value of vast sources of clinical, biological, population and environmental data for public benefit. The Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) conference is already established as a key event in the calendar of the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI); The Farr Institute has been establishing a conference series. For 2017, the decision was made to combine the power and established reputational excellence of EFMI with the emerging and innovative research of The Farr Institute community to create ‘Informatics for Health 2017', a joint conference that creates a scientific forum allowing these two communities to share knowledge, insights and experience, advance cross-disciplinary thinking, and stimulate creativity. This book presents the 116 full papers presented at that conference, held in Manchester, UK in April 2017. The papers are grouped under five headings: connected and digital health; health data science; human, organisational, and social aspects; knowledge management; and quality, safety, and patient outcomes, and the book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the analysis and use of data to support more effective delivery of healthcare.

Health informatics applications will be a cornerstone of the next generation healthcare delivery system. These applications will support the delivery of safe, patient-centered care, and collaborative care delivery. The complexity of modern healthcare is delivered by many different specialties, to many different patients with complex diseases and comorbidity. A one size fits all approach is not adequate to reach the triple aim of improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita cost of healthcare. Health informatics applications must rather be built to be adaptable and sensitive to the complex contexts where they will be used. The health informatics community has long been interested in the role that context plays in the design, implementation and evaluation of Health IT. We have come to realize that context is not just a passive characteristic that impacts Health IT usage but rather is embedded in the core of the users, processes and outcomes that Health IT interacts with. Therefore, we need better approaches to study and understand its impact on Health IT usage in different healthcare settings. This book contains the conference papers from CSHI 2017 - Delivering 21st Century Healthcare - Building a Quality-and-Efficiency Driven System. It contains papers on a variety of topics that are divided into four sections: Theoretical approaches to investigate context sensitive health informatics to generate robust evidence, Redesigning healthcare work practices, Patient participation in healthcare design and redesign, and Human factors and usability. The 2017 CSHI conference continues our efforts to develop robust scientific evidence on context and Health IT.

Product lifetimes are critical for the circular economy, resource efficiency, waste reduction and low carbon strategies for sustainability, and are therefore of interest to academics from many different disciplines as well as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other stakeholders. The challenges related to product lifetimes must be tackled from multiple perspectives, making the sharing of knowledge and expertise from different disciplines particularly important. This book presents papers from the second Product Lifetime and the Environment (PLATE) conference, held in Delft, the Netherlands, in November 2017. The conference originated from the desire to bring together academic researchers working in the field of sustainability to benefit from each other's knowledge and further advance the field. The book includes the 88 full papers delivered at the conference, grouped according to the following 7 conference themes: design for product longevity; product lifetime optimization; cultural perspectives on the throwaway society; circular economy and product lifetimes; business opportunities, economic implications and marketing strategies; consumer influences on product lifetimes; and policy, regulation and legislation. The book will be of interest to all those concerned with sustainable consumption, circular economy and resource efficiency.

Web technology is ubiquitous in modern life, enabling various forms of communication in real time between the users and computers, as well as between network devices, by means of artificial (markup) languages and cascading style sheets (CSS). Multimedia packages implemented in the WWW can also further expand the user groups to include, for example, the amblyopic or the hearing-impaired. According to Microsoft, Web technology also encompasses Web servers and programming languages for building Web applications. But such a breathtaking development that meets dynamically changing new emerging networking standards demands a large-scale infrastructure that will enable us to access digital information in its every form, whatever its purpose. This book presents 20 papers and 3 keynote speeches from the 8th International Conference on Applications of Digital Information and Web Technologies (ICADIWT 2017), held at the Universidad Autόnoma de Ciudad Juárez, Juárez City, Chihuahua, Mexico, in March 2017. Over the years, the ICADIWT conference has created its own research community of participants from many countries, who attend the event each year to demonstrate and discuss their research findings. The community is growing every year. The scope of the ICADIWT 2017 conference covers a wide range of research areas, and the papers in the book are divided into 7 subject areas: pattern recognition; distributed computing; mobile technologies; digital technologies for aerospace; medical systems applications; system engineering; and control systems.

Biomedical Informatics is now indispensible in modern healthcare, and the field covers a very broad spectrum of research and application outcomes, ranging from cell to population, and including a number of technologies such as imaging, sensors, and biomedical equipment, as well as management and organizational subjects. This book presents 65 full papers and two keynote speeches from the 2017 edition of the International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare (ICIMTH 2017), held in Athens, Greece in July 2017. The papers are grouped in three chapters, and cover a wide range of topics, reflecting the current scope of Biomedical Informatics. In essence, Biomedical Informatics empowers the transformation of healthcare, and the book will be of interest to researchers, providers and healthcare practitioners alike.

Intelligent transport systems are on the increase. They employ a variety of technologies, from basic management systems to more advanced application systems, with information technology – including wireless communication, computational technologies, floating car data/cellular data such as sensing technologies and video vehicle detection – playing a major role. This book presents the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Technology and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITITS 2017), held in Xi'an, People's Republic of China, in June 2017. The conference provides a platform for professionals and researchers from industry and academia to present and discuss recent advances in the field of information technology and intelligent transportation systems; organizations and researchers involved in these fields, including distinguished academics from around the world, explore theoretical and applied topics such as emergency vehicle notification systems, automatic road enforcement, collision avoidance systems and cooperative systems. ITITS 2017 received more than 200 papers from 4 countries, and the 65 accepted papers appear in this book, which will be of interest to all those involved with the development of intelligent transport systems.

Health Information Technology (HIT) continues to increase in importance as a component of healthcare provision, but designing HIT is complex. The creation of cooperative learning processes for future HIT users is not a simple task. The importance of engaging end users such as health professionals, patients and relatives in the design process is widely acknowledged, and Participatory Design (PD) is the primary discipline for directly involving people in the technological design process. Exploring the application of PD in HIT is crucial to all those involved in engaging end users in HIT design and, in collaboration with a wide range of people, a broad repertoire of methods and techniques to apply PD within multiple domains has been established. This book, Participatory Design & Health Information Technology, presents the contributions of researchers from 5 countries, who share their experience and insights into applying PD in the development of HIT. The book begins with a review of PD and HIT research, followed by 10 papers, each of which describes important lessons for HIT designers interested in user participation. The papers are grouped under the themes of participatory processes; participatory reflections; participatory business; and participatory inspiration. The book will be of interest to researchers, students, health professionals, IT designers and managers who work with or are interested in supporting participation in the design of HIT.

The term ‘foreign fighters'describes nationals of one state who – for whatever variety of reasons and motives – travel abroad to take part in a conflict in another state without the promise of financial reward. The majority of attention has so far been focused on the nationals of Western European states who have gone to fight for the so-called Islamic State in Syria. There exist, however, other examples of contemporary European foreign fighters whose travails, motivations and returns have been largely unnoticed and underappreciated. This books attempts to balance this state of affairs by bringing to the fore some lesser known cases of non-terrorist but foreign fighters related to the conflict in Ukraine, and situating them against the backdrop of the larger mobilization for the war in Syria. This book presents edited versions of the 12 papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) ‘Not Only Syria? Foreign Fighters: A Threat to NATO Allies and Their Neighbours'. The workshop was held in Chisinau, Moldova, in May 2016, and brought together researchers and experts in the field to discuss the differences, similarities and parallels between different groups of foreign fighters engaged in the conflicts in Syria and the Ukraine. The papers include contributions from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Poland among others, and examine cases of foreign fighters from these and other countries. The book will provide an interesting context to researchers who have, up to now, looked only at a single set of such fighters, and will lead to tangible recommendations on how to develop policies to address the threat posed by returnees from any conflict.

Like every other walk of modern life, the law has embraced digital technology, and is increasingly reliant on information systems for its efficient functioning. This book presents papers from the 30th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2017), held in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, in December 2017. In the three decades since they began, the JURIX conferences have been held under the auspices of the Dutch Foundation for Legal Knowledge Based Systems, and have become a fully European conference series which addresses familiar topics and extends known techniques, as well as exploring newer topics such as question answering and the use of data mining and machine learning. Of the 42 submissions received for this edition, 12 have been selected for publication as full papers and 13 as short papers, with an acceptance rate of around 59%. The papers address a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence and law, such as argumentation, norms, evidence, belief revision, citations, case-based reasoning and ontologies. Diverse techniques such as information retrieval and extraction, machine learning, semantic web, and network analysis were applied, among others, and textual sources include legal cases, bar examinations, and legislative/regulatory documents. The book will be of interest to all those working in the legal system who wish to keep abreast of the latest developments in information systems.

Artificial intelligence in all its forms is increasingly interwoven into all our lives, and remains one of the most lively areas of discussion and interest in technology today. This book presents the proceedings of the 20th International Conference of the Catalan Association for Artificial Intelligence (CCIA'2017): ‘Recent Advances in Artificial Intelligence Research and Development', held in Deltebre, Terres de l'Ebre, Spain, in October 2017. Despite its title, this annual conference is not only for researchers from the Catalan Countries, but is an international event which attracts participants from countries all around the world. In total, 41 original contributions were submitted to CCIA'2017. Of these, 21 were accepted as long papers for oral presentation and 13 were accepted as short papers to be presented as posters. These 34 submissions appear in this book organized around a number of different topics including: agents and multi-agent systems; artificial vision and image processing; machine learning; artificial neural networks; cognitive modeling; fuzzy logic and reasoning; robotics; and AI applications. The book also includes abstracts of the 3 presentations by invited speakers. The book offers a representative sample of the current state of the art in the artificial intelligence community, and will be of interest to all those working with AI worldwide.

Data science is proving to be one of the major trends of the second decade of the 21st century. Even though the term was coined by Peter Naur in the mid 1960s as ‘datalogy', or the science of data, it is in the context of data analytics, and especially of big data, that data science has emerged as the new paradigm. Fuzzy and Crisp strategies are two of the most widespread approaches within the computational intelligence umbrella. This book presents 65 papers from the 3rd International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Data Mining (FSDM 2017), held in Hualien, Taiwan, in November 2017. All papers were carefully reviewed by program committee members, who took into consideration the breadth and depth of the research topics that fall within the scope of FSDM. Offering a state-of-the-art overview of fuzzy systems and data mining, the publication will be of interest to all those whose work involves data science.

Information modelling and knowledge bases are now essential, not only to academics working in computer science, but also wherever information technology is applied. This book presents papers from the 26th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases (formerly the European Japanese Conference – EJC), which took place in Tampere, Finland, in June 2016. The conference provides a platform to bring together researchers and practitioners working with information modelling and knowledge bases, and the 33 accepted papers cover topics including: conceptual modelling; knowledge and information modelling and discovery; linguistic modelling; cross-cultural communication and social computing; environmental modelling and engineering; and multimedia data modelling and systems. All papers were improved and resubmitted for publication after the conference. Covering state-of-the-art research and practice, the book will be of interest to all those whose work involves information modelling and knowledge bases.

Research into computational models of argument is a rich interdisciplinary field involving the study of natural, artificial and theoretical argumentation and requiring openness to interactions with a variety of disciplines, ranging from philosophy and cognitive science to formal logic and graph theory. The ultimate aim is to support the development of computer-based systems able to engage in argumentation-related activities, either with human users or among themselves. This book presents the proceedings of the sixth biennial International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA 2016), held in Potsdam, Germany, on 12- 16 September. The aim of the COMMA conferences is to bring together researchers interested in computational models of argument and the representation of argumentation structures in natural language texts, with special attention to contributions concerning emerging trends and the development of new connections with other areas. The book contains the 25 full papers, 17 short papers and 10 demonstration abstracts presented at the conference, together with 3 invited talks. Subjects covered include abstract, bipolar and structured argumentation, quantitative approaches and their connections with formalisms like Bayesian networks and fuzzy logic, multi-agent scenarios, algorithms and solvers, and mining arguments in text, dialogue, and social media. The book provides an overview of current research and developments in the field of computational models of argument, and will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the field.

Ontology, originally a fundamental part of philosophical enquiry, is concerned with the analysis and categorization of what exists. The advent of complex information systems which rely on robust and coherent formal representations of their subject matter has led to a renewed focus on ontological enquiry, and the systematic study of such representations are at the center of the modern discipline of formal ontology. This is now a research focus in domains as diverse as conceptual modeling, database design, software engineering, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, the life sciences, bioinformatics, geographic information science, knowledge engineering, information retrieval and the semantic web. This book presents the proceedings of the 9th edition of the Formal Ontology in Information Systems conference (FOIS 2016) held in Annecy, France, in July 2016. It contains the 25 full papers delivered at the conference (an acceptance rate of 30.9% for the main track), as well as the abstracts of the 3 keynotes by Gilberto Câmara, Stephen Mumford and Friederike Moltmann. The remainder of the book is divided into the sections: Foundations; Space, Time and Change; Cognition, Language and Semantics; Empiricism and Measurement; Ontology for Engineering; Biomedical Ontologies; and Ontology of Social Reality. The domains addressed by the papers include geography, biomedicine, economics, social reality and engineering, and the book will be of interest to all those working in these fields, as well as to anybody with an interest in formal ontology.

As a vibrant area of computer science which continues to develop rapidly, AI is a field in which fresh ideas and new perspectives are of particular interest. This book presents the proceedings of the 8th European Starting AI Researcher Symposium (STAIRS 2016), held as a satellite event of the 22nd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) in The Hague, the Netherlands, in August 2016. What is unique about the STAIRS symposium is that the principal author of every submitted paper must be a young researcher who either does not yet hold a Ph.D., or who has obtained their Ph.D. during the year before the submission deadline for papers. The book contains 21 accepted papers; Part I includes the 11 long papers which were presented orally at the symposium, and Part II the remaining long and short papers presented in poster sessions. These papers cover the entire field of AI, with social intelligence and socio-cognitive systems, machine learning and data mining, autonomous agents and multiagent systems, being the areas which attracted the largest number of submissions. There is a good balance between foundational issues and AI applications, and the problems tackled range widely from classical AI themes such as planning and scheduling or natural language processing, to questions related to decision theory and games, as well as to other newly emerging areas. Providing a tantalizing glimpse of the work of AI researchers of the future, the book will be of interest to all those wishing to keep abreast of this exciting and fascinating field.

Our increased reliance on computer technology for all aspects of life, from education to business, means that the field of cyber-security has become of paramount importance to us all. This book presents the proceedings of the inaugural Singapore Cyber-Security R&D Conference (SG-CRC 2016), held in Singapore in January 2016, and contains six full and seven short peer-reviewed papers. The conference took as its theme the importance of introducing a technically grounded plan for integrating cyber-security into a system early in the design process, rather than as an afterthought. The element of design is integral to a process, be it a purely software system, such as one engaged in managing online transactions, or a combination of hardware and software such as those used in Industrial Control Systems, pacemakers, and a multitude of IoT devices. SG-CRC 2016 focused on how design as an element can be made explicit early in the development process using novel techniques based on sound mathematical tools and engineering approaches, and brought together academics and practitioners from across the world to participate in a program of research papers and industrial best practice, as well as an exhibition of tools. The book will be of interest to all those with a working interest in improved cyber-security.

The field of health is an increasingly complex and technical one; and an area in which a more multidisciplinary approach would undoubtedly be beneficial in many ways. This book presents papers from the conference ‘Health – Exploring Complexity: An Interdisciplinary Systems Approach', held in Munich, Germany, from August 28th to September 2nd 2016. This joint conference unites the conferences of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS), the German Society for Epidemiology (DGEpi), the International Epidemiological Association - European Region, and the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI). These societies already have long-standing experience of integrating the disciplines of medical informatics, biometry, epidemiology and health data management. The book contains over 160 papers, and is divided into 14 sections covering subject areas such as: health and clinical information systems; eHealth and telemedicine; big data and advanced analytics; and evidence-based health informatics, evaluation and education, among many others. The book will be of value to all those working in the field of health and interested in finding new ways to enable the collaboration of different scientific disciplines and the establishment of comprehensive methodological approaches.

The use of digital information and web technologies is now essential to all our lives on a daily basis. In particular, web technologies that enable easy access to digital information in all its forms and regardless of the user's purpose are extremely important. This book presents papers from the 7th International Conference on Applications of Digital Information and Web Technologies (ICADIWT 2016), held in Keelung City, Taiwan, in March 2016. The conference, which has been organized since 2008, is aimed at building the infrastructure necessary for the large-scale development of web technologies, and attracts participants from many countries who attend the conference to demonstrate and discuss their research findings. The 19 full papers presented at the conference have been arranged into 5 sections: networking; fuzzy systems; intelligent information systems; data communication and protection; and cloud computing. Subjects covered fall under areas such as Internet communication, technologies and software; digital communication software and networks; the Internet of things; databases and applications; and many more. The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the application of digital information and web technologies.

Fuzzy logic is widely used in machine control. The term ‘fuzzy'refers to the fact that the logic involved can deal with concepts that cannot be expressed as either ‘true'or ‘false', but rather as ‘partially true'. Fuzzy set theory is very suitable for modeling the uncertain duration in process simulation, as well as defining the fuzzy goals and fuzzy constraints of decision-making. It has many applications in industry, engineering and social sciences. This book presents the proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Data Mining (FSDM2015), held in Shanghai, China, in December 2015. The application domain covers geography, biology, economics, medicine, the energy industry, social science, logistics, transport, industrial and production engineering, and computer science. The papers presented at the conference focus on topics such as system diagnosis, rule induction, process simulation/control, and decision-making. They include papers on solving practical problems with intelligent algorithms; statistical analysis; classification and clustering; and association rule learning. They also reflect the frontier in data mining research and address the challenges posed to data analytics research by the increasingly large datasets yielded by many application domains, together with new types of unstructured data. The book provides an overview of the ways in which fuzzy theory and data mining principles are applied in various fields, and will be of interest to all those who work in either the theory or practice of fuzzy systems and data mining.

Artificial Intelligence continues to be one of the most exciting and fast-developing fields of computer science. This book presents the 177 long papers and 123 short papers accepted for ECAI 2016, the latest edition of the biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Europe's premier venue for presenting scientific results in AI. The conference was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from August 29 to September 2, 2016. ECAI 2016 also incorporated the conference on Prestigious Applications of Intelligent Systems (PAIS) 2016, and the Starting AI Researcher Symposium (STAIRS). The papers from PAIS are included in this volume; the papers from STAIRS are published in a separate volume in the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (FAIA) series. Organized by the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI) and the Benelux Association for Artificial Intelligence (BNVKI), the ECAI conference provides an opportunity for researchers to present and hear about the very best research in contemporary AI. This proceedings will be of interest to all those seeking an overview of the very latest innovations and developments in this field.

Fuzzy systems and data mining are now an essential part of information technology and data management, with applications affecting every imaginable aspect of our daily lives. This book contains 81 selected papers from those accepted and presented at the 2nd international conference on Fuzzy Systems and Data Mining (FSDM2016), held in Macau, China, in December 2016. This annual conference focuses on 4 main groups of topics: fuzzy theory, algorithm and system; fuzzy applications; the interdisciplinary field of fuzzy logic and data mining; and data mining, and the event provided a forum where more than 100 qualified, high-level researchers and experts from over 20 countries, including 4 keynote speakers, gathered to create an important platform for researchers and engineers worldwide to engage in academic communication. All the papers collected here present original ideas, methods and results of general significance supported by clear reasoning and compelling evidence, and as such the book represents a valuable and wide ranging reference resource of interest to all those whose work involves fuzzy systems and data mining.

The Catalan Association for Artificial Intelligence (ACIA) was formed in 1994 with the aim of promoting cooperation between researchers in artificial intelligence within the Catalan speaking community. This objective has been achieved and widened since the association held their first conference in 1998, and the annual conference of the association has become an international event presenting and discussing the latest research in AI, which attracts AI researchers from around the world. This book presents the proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Catalan Association for Artificial Intelligence (CCIA 2016), held in Barcelona, Spain, on 19-21 October. From a total of 50 original contributions, 16 long papers and 22 short papers were accepted for presentation at the conference on the basis of their relevance, originality and technical validity. The book is divided into 7 sections: Invited Talks (synopsis only); Vision and Robotics; Logic, Constraint Satisfaction and Qualitative Theory; Classification and Clustering; Modelling; Planning and Recommender Systems; Lexical Knowledge Representation and Natural Language Processing. Providing an overview of the latest developments in the field, this book will be of interest to all those whose work involves research into, and the application of, artificial intelligence.

As with almost every other part of our daily lives, information technology is now indispensable in the legal sphere. The variety of applications has grown, keeping pace with developments in the wider field of artificial intelligence: logic and argument have been joined by statistical methods and data, and knowledge engineering has been enriched by machine learning. This book presents the papers delivered at the 29th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems – JURIX 2016, held in Nice, France, in December 2016. From the 56 submissions received for the conference, 11 were selected for publication as full papers, 10 as short papers, and 10 as posters, which are included in the proceedings for the first time. The papers address a wide range of topics at the interface of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Law, such as argumentation, norms and evidence, network science, information retrieval, and natural language processing. Many of the theories and technologies explored in the papers are drawn from real-life materials, including cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights, Dutch and Greek legal texts, and international investment agreements and contracts. Reflecting the many facets and the interdisciplinary character of AI and Law, the book will be of interest to all those whose work involves them in these fields.

Particle accelerators have attracted much interest and expectation from the international scientific community, and these show no sign of diminishing. Major world research laboratories have either planned or are envisaging the construction of new accelerators in order to foster the progress of science in many fields, from high energy physics to cultural heritage and the environment. This book presents 13 papers from the workshop'Future Research Infrastructures; Challenges and Opportunities', held as part of the series of the Enrico Fermi International School of Physics in Varenna, Italy, in July 2015. The workshop combined presentations on the science of particle accelerators and their applications with talks on the development of future accelerators, and the papers included here cover a diverse range of topics including: the European Spallation Source; the Swiss Light Source; accelerator projects in Korea; future circular colliders; synchrotron-based techniques for cultural heritage; and the new research horizon in hadron therapy. The book also includes a summary of the panel discussion on the need for international world infrastructures.

Information modeling has become an increasingly important topic for researchers, designers and users of information systems. In the course of the last three decades, information modeling and knowledge bases have become essential, not only with regard to information systems and computer science in an academic context, but also with the use of information technology for business purposes. This book presents 29 papers selected and upgraded from those delivered at the 25th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases (EJC 2015), held in Maribor, Slovenia, in June 2015. The aim of the conference is to bring together experts from different areas of computer science and other disciplines, including philosophy and logic, cognitive science, knowledge management, linguistics, and management science, with a view to understanding and solving problems and applying research results to practice. Areas covered by the papers include: conceptual modeling; knowledge and information modeling and discovery; linguistic modeling; cross-cultural communication and social computing; environmental modeling and engineering; and multimedia data modeling and systems. The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the development or use of information modeling and knowledge bases.

Although the data in healthcare comes from and relates to patients, it has generally been the clinician and not the patient who has been seen as the end-user of health information or health information technology. This seems set to change though, as the evolution of new online tools and mobile applications has led to the growth of a grass-roots effort from patients to change their role and involvement in their own health management. This book presents papers from the Information Technology and Communications in Health conference, ITCH 2015, held in Victoria, Canada, in February 2015. The theme of this conference is patient-centered care, and not only were contributors asked to consider the role and voice of the patient, but patients themselves were invited to contribute papers describing their experiences in healthcare and their use of their own data. The papers included here reflect not only informatics innovations in the field, but also explore how to involve patients in the design process, implementation and long-term use of health information systems, and will be of interest to researchers, health practitioners and patients alike.

With construction techniques becoming ever more complex, and population pressure leading to the development of increasingly problematic sites, expertise in the area of soil structure interaction is crucial to architectural and construction industries worldwide. This book contains the proceedings of the ISSMGE Technical Committee 207 International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering - Soil Structure Interaction and Retaining Walls - held in St Petersburg, Russia, in June 2014. The conference was dedicated to the memory of the outstanding geotechnical expert Gregory Porphyryevich Tschebotarioff. Topics covered at the conference included: soil structure interaction, underground structures and retaining walls, site investigation as a source of input parameters for soil structure interaction, and interaction between structures and frozen soils. The papers included here are the English language papers. Papers presented by the authors in Russian are published by the Georeconstruction Institute of St. Petersburg.

Terrorist attacks perpetrated by lone actors have already occurred in several countries, and this phenomenon is emerging as a threat to the security of both NATO members and other countries worldwide. In this context, a lone actor, or'lone wolf', is someone who individually prepares or commits violent acts in support of an ideology, group or movement, but who is acting outside of the command structure and without the assistance of any group. Up to now, these individual acts have been seen as almost impossible to forecast, but it is nevertheless important to develop a responsible security policy which takes them into account and incorporates planning for counteraction, prevention and response. This book presents papers, written by leading experts in the field, which reflect the subjects presented at the workshop'Loan Actors – An Emerging Security Threat', part of the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme, held in Jerusalem in November 2014. The papers are divided into five sections: the threat of lone actor terrorism; case studies; countering and responding to the threat; legal and ethical aspects; and foresight and policy aspects. The insights, information and recommendations shared in this book will be of interest to all those involved in developing a more efficient response policy to this emerging threat.

Computer technology has become an essential part of all our lives, and the legal profession is no exception. For more than 25 years, the annual JURIX conference has provided an international forum for academics and practitioners working at the cutting edge of research into and the application of the interface between law and computer technologies. This book presents the proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2015), which took place in Braga, Portugal in December 2015. The book contains 14 full papers, nine short papers and nine posters delivered at the conference. These address a wide range of topics in legal informatics, and fall into three main subject areas: theory and foundations of AI and law, focusing on themes such as argumentation, reasoning, and evidence; technology of AI and law, which presents technological advancements and solutions; and applications of AI and law, describing implementations of AI and law technology in real world systems. The book offers an overview of the ways in which current information technology is relevant to the practice of law, and will be of interest to all those whose work involves legal theory, argumentation and practice.

Concurrent Engineering (CE) is based on the premise that different phases of a product's lifecycle should be conducted concurrently and initiated as early as possible within the Product Creation Process (PCP). It has become the substantive basic methodology in many industries, including automotive, aerospace, machinery, shipbuilding, consumer goods, process industry and environmental engineering. CE aims to increase the efficiency of the PCP and reduce errors in later phases while incorporating considerations for full lifecycle and through-life operations. This book presents the proceedings of the 22nd ISPE Inc. (International Society for Productivity Enhancement) International Conference on Concurrent Engineering (CE2015) entitled ‘Transdisciplinary Lifecycle Analysis of Systems', and held in Delft, the Netherlands, in July 2015. It is the second in the series ‘Advances in Transdisciplinary Engineering'. The book includes 63 peer reviewed papers and 2 keynote speeches arranged in 10 sections: keynote speeches; systems engineering; customization and variability management; production oriented design, maintenance and repair; design methods and knowledge-based engineering; multidisciplinary product management; sustainable product development; service oriented design; product lifecycle management; and trends in CE. Containing papers ranging from the theoretical and conceptual to the highly pragmatic, this book will be of interest to all engineering professionals and practitioners; researchers, designers and educators.

Massive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCs, have arisen as the logical consequence of marrying long-distance education with the web and social media. MOOCs were confidently predicted by advanced thinkers decades ago. They are undoubtedly here to stay, and provide a valuable resource for learners and teachers alike. This book focuses on music as a domain of knowledge, and has three objectives: to introduce the phenomenon of MOOCs; to present ongoing research into making MOOCs more effective and better adapted to the needs of teachers and learners; and finally to present the first steps towards'social MOOCs', which support the creation of learning communities in which interactions between learners go beyond correcting each other's assignments. Social MOOCs try to mimic settings for humanistic learning, such as workshops, small choirs, or groups participating in a Hackathon, in which students aided by somebody acting as a tutor learn by solving problems and helping each other. The papers in this book all discuss steps towards social MOOCs; their foundational pedagogy, platforms to create learning communities, methods for assessment and social feedback and concrete experiments. These papers are organized into five sections: background; the role of feedback; platforms for learning communities; experiences with social MOOCs; and looking backwards and looking forward. Technology is not a panacea for the enormous challenges facing today's educators and learners, but this book will be of interest to all those striving to find more effective and humane learning opportunities for a larger group of students.

Electromagnetic Nondestructive Evaluation (ENDE) is an invaluable tool for assessing the condition of a test object without permanently altering or harming it in any way. It has become an indispensable technique for troubleshooting and research in diverse fields, such as engineering, medicine and art. This book presents one plenary lecture and 41 selected papers from the 19th International Workshop on Electromagnetic Nondestructive Evaluation, held in Xi'an, China, in June 2014. The workshop focused on research into the theory and application of ENDE methods, and provided a forum for the exchange of ideas and discussion of recent developments. The papers are arranged in five sections: material characterization; analytical and numerical modeling; inverse problems and signal processing; new developments and innovative industrial applications; and advanced sensors in ENDE.

Easy access to digital information in every form is something which has become indispensable given our ever-increasing reliance on digital technology. But such access would not be possible without the reliable and effective infrastructure which has led to the large-scale development of web technologies. This book presents the 27 papers delivered at the 6th International Conference on Applications of Digital Information and Web Technologies (ICADIWT), held in February 2015, at the University of Macau, Macau. The book is divided into seven sections: Internet communication, human-computer interaction, adaptive web applications, data communication, cloud computing, systems engineering, and data mining. Since each paper is a survey contributed by different experts from very many countries, this book can be seen as a collection of the current research trends in the field and hence it will be of interest to all those whose work involves digital information and web technology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has featured widely in the news recently. It is vital to the continued development of computer science and informatics, and is indispensable for the effective functioning of a multitude of systems in fields such as medicine, economics, linguistics, philosophy, psychology and logical analysis, as well as industry. This book presents the proceedings of the 13th Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI 2015), held in Halmstad, Sweden, in November 2015. SCAI is the main biennial conference for the AI research communities of Scandinavia, but also attracts the attendance of a wide range of international participants. The book features 17 accepted papers from the conference as well as extended abstracts describing the work of six Ph.D. students who presented their research-in-progress to a panel of experts in the doctoral symposium which forms part of the conference. A wide range of topics are covered, including machine learning, data mining, logical reasoning, robotics and planning, and the papers included here focus on both the theory and practical applications of AI. The book will be of interest to all those wishing to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of AI.

Big Data has been much in the news in recent years, and the advantages conferred by the collection and analysis of large datasets in fields such as marketing, medicine and finance have led to claims that almost any real world problem could be solved if sufficient data were available. This is of course a very simplistic view, and the usefulness of collecting, processing and storing large datasets must always be seen in terms of the communication, processing and storage capabilities of the computing platforms available. This book presents papers from the International Research Workshop, Advanced High Performance Computing Systems, held in Cetraro, Italy, in July 2014. The papers selected for publication here discuss fundamental aspects of the definition of Big Data, as well as considerations from practice where complex datasets are collected, processed and stored. The concepts, problems, methodologies and solutions presented are of much more general applicability than may be suggested by the particular application areas considered. As a result the book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the processing of very large data sets, exascale computing and the emerging fields of data science

Artificial Intelligence is a field which continues to expand and develop rapidly, and so it is also one in which original ideas and fresh perspectives are of particular interest. The Starting AI Researcher Symposium (STAIRS) is an international meeting which supports Ph.D. students and those who have held a Ph.D. for less than one year, from all over the world, at the start of their career. The symposium offers doctoral students and young postdoctoral AI fellows the chance to experience delivering a presentation of their work in a supportive environment. This book presents papers from the Seventh STAIRS, a satellite event of the 21st European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) held in Prague, Czech Republic, in August 2014. The book includes 30 papers accepted for presentation at the conference, out of 45 submissions. 16 papers were selected for an oral presentation at the symposium, while the other 14 were presented at a poster session. Together these papers cover the field of AI; knowledge representation and reasoning, machine learning, planning and scheduling being the areas which have attracted the largest number of submissions. The book provides a fascinating preview of the current work of future AI researchers, and will be of interest to all those whose work involves the use of artificial intelligence and intelligent systems.