This book develops tools and techniques that will help urban residents gain access to urban computing. Metaphorically speaking, it is taking computing to the street by giving the general public – rather than just researchers and professionals – the power to leverage available city infrastructure and create solutions tailored to their individual needs. It brings together five articles that are based on presentations given at the Street Computing Workshop held on 24 November 2009 in Melbourn...

This chapter provides an overview of the Thinking Processes, their nature and use; addressing the TP's conceptual, philosophical and methodological foundations; cataloguing their use and practice as reported in the published literature; discussing the need, the design and purpose of the TP's; and reviewing their effectiveness, on their own, in concert with one another, or with other decision-making methods. We find that TOC serves as a near-complete methodological set on its own, and note syn...

The two-volume set LNICST 150 and 151 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the First International Internet of Things Summit, IoT360 2014, held in Rome, Italy, in October 2014.This volume contains 30 revised full papers carefully reviewed and selected from 51 submissions at the following three conferences: the First International Conference on Mobility and Smart Cities, Mobility IoT 2014; the First International Conference on Software-Defined and Virtu...

Challenged by the recent economic crisis, the building and construction industry is currently seeking new orientation and strategies. Here mass customisation is uncovered as a key strategy in helping to meet this challenge. The term mass customisation denotes an offering that meets the demands of each individual customer, whilst still being produced with mass production efficiency. Today mass customisation is emerging from a pilot stage into a scalable and sustainable strategy...Th...

The construction industry is an information-intensive sector and low levels of productivity are often blamed on inadequate integration of information. This book shows how the different types and sources of information can be integrated to benefit individual construction projects, construction companies and in the construction industry at world-wide level.

Virtual learning environments are widely spread in higher education, yet they are often under utilised by the institutions that employ them. This book addresses the need to move beyond thinking about the VLE simply in terms of the particular package that an institution has adopted, and viewing it as a significant educational technology that will shape much of the teaching and learning process in the coming years.Considering how virtual learning environments can be successfully depl...

This book aims at capitalizing and transmitting know-how about the design of Augmented Environments (AE) from some of the most prominent laboratories in the field worldwide. The authors belong to the RUFAE network (Research on User- Friendly Augmented Environments, founded in 2002) who meet in research seminars to share experience; Writing this book was perceived as an opportunity to look back over the last few years to sum up important findings; and formalize their approach and experience...

This book covers the ever-increasing problem of information overload from both the professional and academic perspectives. Focusing on the needs of practicing engineers and professional communicators, it addresses the causes and costs of information overload, along with strategies and techniques for reducing and minimizing its negative effects. The theoretical framework of information overload and ideas for future research are also presented. The book brings together an international group...

This book examines a wide range of issues that characterize the current IT based innovation trends in organizations. It contains a collection of research papers focusing on themes of growing interest in the field of Information Systems, Organization Studies, Management, Accounting and Engineering. The book offers a multidisciplinary view on Information Systems with the aim of disseminating academic knowledge. It would be particularly relevant to IT practitioners such as information systems...

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the various aspects for the development of smart cities from a European perspective. It presents both theoretical concepts as well as empirical studies and cases of smart city programs and their capacity to create value for citizens. The contributions in this book are a result of an increasing interest for this topic, supported by both national governments and international institutions. The book offers a large panorama of the most important a...

The MCPC 2014 is a multi‐track conference featuring a combination of high profile keynotes with expert talks, panel discussions, paper sessions, workshops, receptions, and much more. While it is devoted to sharing and discussing the latest research in the field, the MCPC conference has a strong focus on real life applications. Since its beginning, the MCPC conference has had an equal share of participants, practitioners and academics/researchers. This makes the MCPC conference truly unique...

This book discusses how smart cities strive to deploy and interconnect infrastructures and services to guarantee that authorities and citizens have access to reliable and global customized services. The book addresses the wide range of topics present in the design, development and running of smart cities, ranging from big data management, Internet of Things, and sustainable urban planning. The authors cover - from concept to practice – both the technical aspects of smart cities enabled pri...