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American Religions: An Illustrated History

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:18:46 GMT

9781576072226 (1576072223), ABC Clio, 2000

As the twenty-first century begins, the United States has emerged as not only the most powerful nation on earth, but also by far the most religiously diverse nation ever. Several thousand distinct religious communities live side-by-side in relative harmony, and in any urban area it is not unusual to see a Catholic church down the street from a Buddhist temple and sharing the block with a Jewish synagogue. Not far away may be a Shi’a Muslim mosque, a Hindu temple, or an occult/New Age bookstore; while walking the streets, one could find some Latter-Day Saint missionaries and a team of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Quietly worshiping in nearby apartments might be a coven of neopagan Wiccans or a Christian commune.

To some extent, the United States is a Protestant nation, and the combined membership of the several Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Holiness, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and other Protestant churches still collectively constitutes around half of the American public. But whereas at one time they had a dominating presence among America’s religious, they now share the landscape with a thousand competing religious communities that represent the spectrum of the world’s religions. A variety of images have been used to express this diversity, among the best being that of a large mosaic, in which a beautiful picture has been created from bits of tile. In the finished picture, each piece of tile retains its individuality completely. Some colors dominate, but all of the pieces are necessary to the completed product. But it is the duty of the art historian to step back and see the total picture that has been created by the coming together in the shared space of the diverse elements.

American Religions: An Illustrated History is a brief summary of how we have arrived at this most interesting development in the human drama. The story begins at the end of the fifteenth century when Europeans discovered the continent and made their initial contacts with the more than 500 different peoples that inhabited it. There was already great diversity among the Native Americans, and the Europeans injected the different varieties of Christianity and Judaism. Here our story really begins and unfolds as the new settlers conquered the land, pushed aside its original inhabitants, and created a new society that we like to think of as the greatest nation on earth. Any account of the mosaic necessarily requires both a perspective and a considerable amount of interpretation.

Knowledge Management (KM) Processes in Organizations: Theoretical Foundations and Practice

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:54:55 GMT

9781598299564 (1598299565), Morgan and Claypool Publishers, 2011

Knowledge Management (KM) is an effort to increase useful knowledge in the organization. It is a natural outgrowth of late twentieth century movements to make organizational management and operations more effective, of higher quality, and more responsive to constituents in a rapidly changing global environment. This document traces the evolution of KM in organizations, summarizing the most influential research and literature in the field. It also presents an overview of selected common and current practices in knowledge management, including the relationship between knowledge management and decision making, with the intention of making a case for KM as a series of processes and not necessarily a manipulation of things. The final section highlights the use of social networking and commonly adopted Web applications to increase the value of social capital and to connect practitioners with clients and colleagues.

Ubiquitous Multimedia and Mobile Agents: Models and Implementations

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:07:23 GMT

9781613501078 (1613501072), IGI Global, 2011

Ubiquitous multimedia systems, or mobile multimedia systems, offer the promise of pervasive delivery of multimedia content to mobile users and their handheld devices.

Ubiquitous Multimedia and Mobile Agents: Models and Implementations provides the hybridization of two paradigms, namely, ubiquitous/mobile multimedia and mobile agents, where mobile agents act as the platform to realize mobile multimedia delivery infrastructure. Ubiquitous multimedia systems involve user/creator authentication, media adaptation, data delivery over wireless network, QoS awareness, and user-mobility management. On the other hand, mobile agent technology is appropriate for the realization of a wide range of high-end mobile applications. Agents and mobile agents are capable of tackling various challenges faced by mobile multimedia delivery infrastructure. This book serves as an excellent reference for the latest research and models in ubiquitous multimedia.

Utilizing Information Technology Systems Across Disciplines: Advancements in the Application of Computer Science (Premier Reference Source)

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:51:03 GMT

9781605666167 (1605666165), Information Science Publishing, 2009

In the information technology age coupled with computer advances, information systems have become an integral part of many disciplines; accordingly, business, marketing, medicine, communication, banking, geography, physics, chemistry, aviation, pilots, forensics, agriculture, and even traf.c lights have one thing in common called computers. Interdisciplinary information technology systems are called different names: Decision support systems (DSS), geographic information systems (GIS), knowledge management systems (KM), management information systems (MIS), data mining (DM), simulation and modeling (SM), artificial intelligence (AI), etc. All the aforementioned systems are based on computer science whether that may be in terms of hardware, software, software engineering, and hardware engineering.

The goal of this book is not to look at computer science from traditional perspectives, but to illustrate the benefits and issues that arise from the application of computer science within other disciplines. This book focuses on major breakthroughs within the technological arena, with particular concentration on accelerating principles, concepts and applications.

The book caters to the needs of scholars, PhD candidates, and researchers as well as graduate level students of computer science, operations research, and economics. The target audience for this book also includes academic libraries throughout the world that are interested in cutting edge research. Another important segment of readers are students of Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Public Affairs (MPA) programs, which include information systems components as part of their curriculum. To make the book accessible to all, a companion website was developed that can be accessed through the link (http://www.computercrossroad.org/).

Computer science has aligned with many disciplines, including geography, linguistics, hand writing, security and the web industry, communications, Knowledge management and simulation. Within this context, this book is organized in 19 chapters. On the whole, the chapters of this book fall into five categories, while crossing paths with different disciplines. The first section concentrates on artificial intelligence technology; the second section concentrates on security: interior, exterior, and security standards; the third section concentrates on Web based industry: assessing quality, Web engineering, and critical success factors; the fourth section that sheds light on computer science implementation in the business arena: aviation industry, learning organizations, multimedia, communications, banking, construction; and the fifth section is suggested readings of different authors, aiming to enrich this book with others’ knowledge, experience, thought and insight.

Systems Analysis and Design for Advanced Modeling Methods: Best Practices (Advances in Database Research)

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:38:18 GMT

9781605663449 (1605663441), Information Science Publishing, 2009

Systems analysis and design (SAND) is an evolving field that still represents the point where business and technology intersects. As discussed in (Bajaj, Batra, Hevner, Parsons, & Siau, 2005), SAND represents the core of management information systems (MIS) curricula but is underrepresented in the area of MIS research. The chapters in this book represent the state of the art in several streams that are ongoing in SAND research is Europe and North America. The chapters in this book are largely taken from presentations at the 2007 AIS SIG SAND (Association of Information Systems Special Interest Group on SAND) symposia that are an annual occurrence in both North America and Europe since around 2004. While not exhaustive, these symposia represent on-going work in several different areas of SAND. As such, the papers here discuss work ranging from spatio-temporal data modeling to software project management to user interface generation to empirical evaluation of web based system development methods.

The field of systems analysis and design is experiencing ongoing changes that significantly impact the way information systems are being analyzed and designed in practice.

Systems Analysis and Design for Advanced Modeling Methods: Best Practices collects work representing leading research in the area of systems analysis and design practices and methodologies. This "Premier Reference Source" provides researchers, academicians, and practitioners with a useful overview and related references in the field.

iPod: The Missing Manual

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:15:04 GMT

9781449312855 (1449312853), O'Reilly, 2011

What a difference a decade makes. When Apple introduced the very first iPod back in October 2001, it was a bulky chunk of white plastic, chrome, and glass that held a mere 5 gigabytes of music. But its concept was simple and enticing: you could carry 1,000 songs around in your pocket. And people did.

Fast-forward 10 years, and the iPod line has blossomed into a quartet of very different models: the Internet-friendly Touch; the fitness-minded Nano; the tiny, no-fuss Shuffle; and the versatile, old-school Classic. From that original ur-Pod, Apple has created a family of iPods with something for just about everybody— as long as you know what features they offer and where to find them.

That’s where this book comes in. iPod: The Missing Manual shows you how to use all the impressive capabilities of the Touch, Nano, Shuffle, and Classic in one convenient volume.

Like that original 2001 model, all of today’s iPods play music. But most of the gadgets in the line have evolved to become full-fledged media players, too. The Touch, Nano, and Classic all show off your photos. The Touch and the Classic let you watch Hollywood movies. The Nano offers an FM radio and a pedometer. The Shuffle, which doubles as a very entertaining lapel pin, can talk back to you with the push of a button. And the Touch, the most popular of all iPods, shoots video, surfs the Web, and can run half a million practical little mini-programs called apps, making it a real pocket computer.

Along with this guide to your device, you’ll get a detailed look at iTunes, Apple’s desktop media manager for all iPods, and learn about the Touch’s new iOS 5 system software and iCloud syncing service.

As the iPod line moves into its second decade, some things hold true: You can still create your own inner world of music and have it right there in your pocket. But on the iPods of 2011 and beyond, you can now fit a big part of the outside world in your pocket, too. Like most 10-year-olds, the iPod keeps on growing.

Web Page Recommendation Models: Theory and Algorithms (Synthesis Lectures on Data Management)

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:13:57 GMT

9781608452477 (1608452476), Morgan and Claypool Publishers, 2010

One of the application areas of data mining is the World Wide Web (WWW or Web), which serves as a huge, widely distributed, global information service for every kind of information such as news, advertisements, consumer information, financial management, education, government, e-commerce, health services, and many other information services. The Web also contains a rich and dynamic collection of hyperlink information, Web page access and usage information, providing sources for data mining. The amount of information on the Web is growing rapidly, as well as the number of Web sites and Web pages per Web site. Consequently, it has become more difficult to find relevant and useful information for Web users. Web usage mining is concerned with guiding the Web users to discover useful knowledge and supporting them for decision-making. In that context, predicting the needs of a Web user as she visits Web sites has gained importance. The requirement for predicting user needs in order to guide the user in a Web site and improve the usability of the Web site can be addressed by recommending pages to the user that are related to the interest of the user at that time. This monograph gives an overview of the research in the area of discovering and modeling the users' interest in order to recommend related Web pages. The Web page recommender systems studied in this monograph are categorized according to the data mining algorithms they use for recommendation. Table of Contents: Introduction to Web Page Recommender Systems / Preprocessing for Web Page Recommender Models / Pattern Extraction / Evaluation Metrics

User-Centered Agile Methods (Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics)

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:11:33 GMT

9781608453726 (1608453723), Morgan and Claypool Publishers, 2010

Agile methods have transformed how developers think about organizing the development of a project. Rather than months (or years) of development, followed by months of field test leading up to a release, agile methods organize development into short iterations with continuous testing and a flexible release date. The agile approach promises to produce more useful and more reliable software, more quickly, and with better control than traditional development. Incorporating strong, user-centered techniques in agile development can only make the project stronger. But the origins and perspectives of agile methods are different from those of user-centered design, and this leads to confusion. It is the objective of this monograph to show how the two can be brought together into a powerful project development approach.

Several different approaches to agile development are currently popular: XP, Scrum, Feature Driven Development (FDD), and Crystal are a few. All these agile methods share core elements: short, well-defined iterations that deliver real user value; tight team processes for efficient development; minimal documentation of specifications; and continual feedback fromstakeholders to validate progress. Agile methods also introduce a new development culture—values and attitudes that agile teams are expected to adopt. These include doing design up front is bad, internal documentation is bad, while face-to-face communication and collaboration are good.

To operate successfully in this new environment, the people doing user research, user interface design, and usability work need to understand the agile culture. Much of this culture can be helpful and supportive of working with end-users and incorporating user interface design into the development process. But there are elements of the culture, especially as it tends to be adopted by new teams, that make designing the user experience more difficult.

Most teams are still new to agile development, so no one is sure exactly how to behave. No one knows when an agile value should be treated like a rigid rule and when it should be taken as a guideline to be balanced against other concerns.When adopting agile methods, some teams take the process to extremes; others, more cautious, adopt only a few elements of agile development and see few benefits as a result.

Peer-to-Peer Computing: Applications, Architecture, Protocols, and Challenges

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:10:56 GMT

9781439809341 (1439809348), CRC Press, 2011

Peer-to-peer computing, at least on a conceptual level, is a genuine paradigm shift—intelligence is at the edge, computing is completely decentralized, and the network is just there to knit the distributed intelligence together. Indeed, with advancements in hardware technology, proliferation of the open source development culture, and abundant information at our fingertips, computing power and user competence at the edge of the network has risen to an unprecedented level. Thus, devices at the edge (not restricted to desktop PCs) can congregate and share their resources (computing power, file data, etc.) to provide services to participating users in a self-sufficient manner, without the need of dedicated servers. With potentially up to millions of machines participating simultaneously (e.g., when some hot events are occurring), the aggregated computing resources can dwarf any powerful server farm.

Well, well, well, ... this is “conceptual level” thinking as of now. There are still many road blocks to such a vision, even though we do see millions of machines working together in a P2P manner (e.g., streaming live video events). Again, as the old saying goes, the devils are in the details. Thinking up such a gigantic scale of shared computing resources is one thing, while implementing the idea is definitely another. Road blocks to the grand vision of truly global P2P sharing include architectural maintenance problems arising from the sheer scale of the system, incentives for truthful cooperation, trust among peers when they need to accept data from remote sources, security issues caused by the inevitable existence of malicious users, etc.

The purpose of this book is to serve as a first-rate guide to these road blocks of a grand vision. The problems arising from these different aspects of P2P computing are first described in detail in the respective chapters. This is followed by a detailed survey of proposed solutions. A major conclusion of this book is that there is still much work to do. Perhaps this should not be a surprise because in a sense we are trying to build a self-governing crowd of computers sharing resources at will. Sounds like a cyberspace version of utopia?

Pro NuGet (Professional Apress)

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:10:05 GMT

9781430241911 (1430241918), Apress, 2012

NuGet is a free, open source, package management tool for the .NET platform. It is developed by Microsoft and has been contributed to the ASP.NET Gallery on Outercurve Foundation, formerly known as the Codeplex Foundation. It also ships as part of the ASP.NET MVC 3 tooling. NuGet enables .NET developers to easily find packages, including any dependencies, and manage them within Visual Studio projects.

A NuGet package can consist of assemblies, configuration files, source code and more. Software package management is not a new concept, although the tools have been notably missing for years by .NET developers. Some open source tools were available but like with many things life a chicken-egg problem existed between having tooling and having a package publishing ecosystem.

Authors Maarten Balliauw and Xavier Decoster have been working with NuGet since it was first released, contributing many ideas and practical solutions to the community over that time. In this book they demonstrate both the core concepts and the more advanced thinking needed to use NuGet effectively.

What you’ll learn

Interact with NuGet using both the graphical user interface and the command line.
Set up your own NuGet repository and develop a basic NuGet server application.
Explore different automation scenarios leveraging NuGet, including continuous integration and automated deployment.
Quickly set up an enterprise-ready environment with MyGet, a NuGet-as-a-Service web application.
Use NuGet to accomplish other goals, such as delivering plug-ins or modules to a web application.

Who this book is for

With help from this succinct guide, you’ll quickly trust NuGet as a swift, invaluable asset in your toolbox. Find yourself imbued with the knowledge and skills to escape ‘dependency hell’ and establish a solid pattern to maintain external references in projects using NuGet.

Getting Started
Consuming and Managing Packages in a Solution
Creating Pacakages
Publishing Packages
Hosting Your Own NuGet Server
Continuous Package Integration
Automated Delivery
Extending NuGet
NuGet as a Protocol
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C

Interactive Co-segmentation of Objects in Image Collections (SpringerBriefs in Computer Science)

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:09:02 GMT

9781461419143 (146141914X), Springer, 2011

The authors survey a recent technique in computer vision called Interactive Co-segmentation, which is the task of simultaneously extracting common foreground objects from multiple related images. They survey several of the algorithms, present underlying common ideas, and give an overview of applications of object co-segmentation.

We survey a recent technique in computer vision called Co-segmentation, which is the task of simultaneously extracting (or co-segmenting) common foreground objects from multiple related images. The notion of co-segmentation was originally introduced several years ago, and has since been extended in various ways.

In this manuscript, we review a number of these recent techniques in Chapter 1. We present one technique for interactive co-segmentation, our recent work called iCoseg in detail in Chapter 2. We provide an overview of applications of object co-segmentation in Chapter 3 and finally discuss some exciting future directions in Chapter 4.

We hope this manuscript gives the reader a combination of breadth and depth on this topic, and will serve as a good introductory reference for the problem of co-segmentation.

High Performance Datacenter Networks: Architectures, Algorithms, & Opportunities (Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture)

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:08:19 GMT

9781608454020 (1608454029), Morgan and Claypool Publishers, 2011

Datacenter networks provide the communication substrate for large parallel computer systems that form the ecosystem for high performance computing (HPC) systems and modern Internet applications. The design of new datacenter networks is motivated by an array of applications ranging from communication intensive climatology, complex material simulations and molecular dynamics to such Internet applications as Web search, language translation, collaborative Internet applications, streaming video and voice-over-IP. For both Supercomputing and Cloud Computing the network enables distributed applications to communicate and interoperate in an orchestrated and efficient way. This book describes the design and engineering tradeoffs of datacenter networks. It describes interconnection networks from topology and network architecture to routing algorithms, and presents opportunities for taking advantage of the emerging technology trends that are influencing router microarchitecture. With the emergence of "many-core" processor chips, it is evident that we will also need "many-port" routing chips to provide a bandwidth-rich network to avoid the performance limiting effects of Amdahl's Law. We provide an overview of conventional topologies and their routing algorithms and show how technology, signaling rates and cost-effective optics are motivating new network topologies that scale up to millions of hosts. The book also provides detailed case studies of two high performance parallel computer systems and their networks. Table of Contents: Introduction / Background / Topology Basics / High-Radix Topologies / Routing / Scalable Switch Microarchitecture / System Packaging / Case Studies / Closing Remarks

Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media (Premier Reference Source)

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:07:35 GMT

9781609607746 (1609607740), IGI Global, 2011

Media in the ubiquitous area is undergoing a tremendous change. Social media and Web 2.0 are applied in ever more diverse practices both in private and public communities and digital games and play are currently undergoing many transformations. Traditional communication and expression modalities are challenged and totally new practices are constructed in the collaborative, interactive media space.

Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media focuses on the definition of ambient and ubiquitous media from a cross-disciplinary viewpoint. This book is unique in the sense that it does not only cover the field of commerce, but also science, research, and citizens. Through a set of contributions to the MindTrek, a non-profit umbrella organization for societies working in the fields of digital media and information society, this book is a must have for anyone interested in the future of this area.

Social media and Web 2.0 are applied in ever more diverse practices both in private and public communities. Traditional communication and expression modalities are challenged and totally new practices are constructed in the collaborative, interactive media space

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Volume 2

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:06:15 GMT

9781598729412 (1598729411), RecipeSecrets.net, 2007

Discover the secret recipes for your favorite restaurant dishes and learn how to make them yourself. This cookbook will teach you the jealously guarded secrets behind actual dishes from billion dollar restaurants - The Cheesecake Factory, KFC, The Olive Garden, PF Chang's, Red Lobster, Hard Rock Cafe... (far too many to list here) and show you how to easily make them at home! Get kudos from family and friends when they find out you actually made these dishes yourself!

After the huge success of Volume 1, due to popular demand, we're back again with America's Most Wanted Recipes Volume 2.

With the help of the 45,000 members of our Secret Recipe Forum, we've tested, replicated, and compiled the recipes for 101 of the most beloved restaurant dishes in America. These are the "secret recipes" which are generating billions of dollars for the restaurant industry every year. Now you can have them to prepare in your own kitchen!

Computer Systems, Support, and Technology (Computer Science, Technology and Applications)

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:04:16 GMT

9781611227598 (1611227593), Nova Press, 2011

This book presents and discusses research in the study of computer science. Topics discussed include fuzzy logic in molecular computing; mobile database computing; learning methods for spam filtering; heterogeneous systems; nested relational database systems; advanced array processing techniques and systems and swarm intelligence.

There exists a worldwide race to make microprocessors of computers as much powerful as possible by shrinking electronic components and cramming logic gates onto smaller and smaller wafers of silicon. Over the past few years, some companies and several academic laboratories have started seriously entertaining the idea of constructing computers in which computations are performed by individual molecules. If the logic gates, sculpted from bulk semiconductors, are based exclusively on electrical signals, those based on single molecules can be extended to chemical, optical and other physical inputs and outputs. Purpose of the chemist is to find out always-new powerful molecular systems that can carry out the logic operations required for computer circuitry. If the compound behaves as a versatile molecular switch, it can be adopted to process Boolean binary logic. On the other hand, if a chemical species responds to external inputs with a continuously variable output signal and the relation between inputs and output can be rationalized in terms of IF-THEN statements, it can be employed to process Fuzzy logic. Organic compounds exhibiting “Proximity Effect” in their photophysics give an opportunity to implement Fuzzy logic Engines at the molecular level. For these chemical species a quantum state, consisting of a superposition of two electronic levels, can be produced through excitation by UV-Visible radiation. The nature of the quantum state and its ability to emit light can be varied in a continuous manner by regulating environmental conditions such as temperature and hydrogen bonding donation ability of the solvent. This opens up a new avenue to implement Fuzzy logic at the molecular level.

Camera Networks: The Acquisition and Analysis of Videos over Wide Areas (Synthesis Lectures on Computer Vision)

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:02:18 GMT

9781608456741 (1608456749), Morgan and Claypool Publishers, 2012

Camera networks is a highly interdisciplinary area of research that has been very active over the last few years. In this book, we focus specifically on the topic of video understanding in camera networks and touch upon the other related areas (e.g., communication resources, machine learning, cooperative control of multi-agent systems) as they pertain to this main focus.Our goal is to provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art in one single document. Researchers interested in the broad area or a particular sub-topic can start out with this book and then move on to specific papers that provide more details.

We divide the area of video analysis in camera networks along the lines of traditional computer vision – tracking, recognition, geometric calibration, 3D estimation, active vision. In each of these, we specifically focus on issues that are relevant to camera networks. For example, in tracking this entails analysis of handoff between non-overlapping cameras, while in active sensing, cooperative control of the camera network is addressed.An issue that is specific to camera networks is distributed processing and we dedicate a chapter to this aspect.

In writing this book, we build upon our experience in working on various research projects related to camera networks.We would like to thank the different funding agencies that made this possible: National Science Foundation through grants ECS-0622176 and CNS-0551741, Office of Naval Research through N00014-09-1-0666 and N00014-09-C-0388, Army Research Office through W911NF-07-1-0485, and CISCO Inc. The first author would like to thank his students and collaborators in this area who have contributed immensely to his understanding of the subject – his former student and co-author Dr. B. Song, without whom this book would never have been possible, his current students Mr. C. Ding and Mr. A. T. Kamal, and his colleagues Prof. B. Bhanu and Prof. J. A. Farrell, with whom he has shared some of the research projects. He is indebted to his advisor Prof. R. Chellappa (Univ. of Maryland, College Park) for initiating him into the world of academic research and to Prof. B. S. Manjunath (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) for all the help and support in the initial years of his academic career.

Both of us are immensely grateful for the continuous support from our families – the joy they bring makes the whole effort worthwhile. We thank our parents for all that they have done and dedicate this book to them.

Advancements in Distributed Computing and Internet Technologies: Trends and Issues

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:01:30 GMT

9781613501108 (1613501102), IGI Global, 2011

The concept of the Internet has been a tremendous success by this time. Other than being a great source of fun and enjoyment, millions of people around the world rely on the Internet for various tasks related to their livelihoods. The overwhelming growth of the Internet and its users is now a reality, which has put new thoughts among the research community to devise new ideas for giving coverage to a huge number of people around the globe. Distributed computing is facilitating the growth and proper utilization of various internetworking technologies.

This book, entitled “Advancements in Distributed Computing and Internet Technologies: Trends and Issues,” compiles the recent research trends as well as common issues in the fields of distributed computing, and Internet technologies. The book aims to provide advancements on emerging technologies in these fields to support the effective design and implementation of distributed computing environments and Internet-based technologies. It is written mainly for graduate students, researchers, academics, and industry practitioners, working in the areas of Internet and distributed computing, who want to improve their understanding of the inter-related topics.

Computational and Data Grids: Principles, Applications and Design

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:00:49 GMT

9781613501139 (1613501137), IGI Global, 2011

After a lot of development efforts, computer science led us undoubtedly to technological revolutions which have been characterized by the creation of the Internet that influences the future of this science. The next revolutionary step occurred by the necessity of the creation of a new computer network, when researchers realized that the computer resources are underutilized. Researchers observed that machines spent much time idly waiting for human input increasing their cost through their underutilization. Their efforts concentrated in maximizing the utilization of computational resources, decreasing at the same time the cost of the computers. A vision for a new computer infrastructure was born at Argonne National Laboratory. The fathers of this unforeseen revolution were Foster & Kesselman (1997). They coined a new term about this new infrastructure which changed the way we think about computer science while they aimed to make computational resources available and efficient to everyone, like electricity.

The term Grid has defined a new scientific area of computing which combines heterogeneous, geographically dispersed computer resources that are a part of various administrative domains and cooperate in order to reach a common goal. The most significant achievement of this new emerged infrastructure is the resources sharing across various loosely coupled networks. The outcome of resources sharing combination with uniqueness characteristics, such as adaptability, applicability, flexibility, interoperability, usability, and scalability, is a grid network which provides us with vast computational and storage capabilities.

A strong basis of the definition was given by the father of the grid, Foster (2002), who defined a grid network with the following requirements. A grid system should have resources coordination that are not subject to centralized control, the usability of standard, open, general-purpose protocols and interfaces, while it delivers nontrivial Quality-of-Service (QoS). The integration between distributed and heterogeneous resources is achieved through a middleware. The usage of a grid middleware is compulsory because it acts as a mediator layer providing a consistent and homogeneous access to resources managed locally with different syntax and access methods.

Hacking and Securing iOS Applications: Stealing Data, Hijacking Software, and How to Prevent It

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:59:31 GMT

9781449318741 (1449318746), O'Reilly, 2012

Data is stolen; this is no uncommon occurrence. The electronic information age has made the theft of data a very lucrative occupation. Whether it’s phishing scams or largescale data breaches, criminals stand to greatly benefit from electronic crimes, making their investment well worth the risk. When I say that this occurrence is not uncommon, my goal isn’t to be dismissive, but rather to alarm you. The chances that your company’s applications will be vulnerable to attack are very high. Hackers of the criminal variety have an arsenal of tools at their disposal to reverse engineer, trace, and even manipulate applications in ways that most programmers aren’t aware. Even many encryption implementations are weak, and a good hacker can penetrate these and other layers that, so many times, present only a false sense of security to the application’s developers.

Take everything hackers collectively know about security vulnerability and apply it to a device that is constantly connected to a public network, wrapped up in a form factor that can fit in your pocket and is frequently left at bars. Your company’s applications, and the data they protect, are now subject to simpler forms of theft such as pickpocketing, file copies that can take as little as a few minutes alone with a device, or malicious injection of spyware and root kits—all of which can be performed as the device’s owner reaches for another drink. One way or another, software on a mobile platform can be easily stolen and later attacked at the criminal’s leisure, sometimes without the device’s owner even knowing, and sometimes without physical access to the device.

Depth Map and 3D Imaging Applications: Algorithms and Technologies

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:53:55 GMT

9781613503263 (1613503261), IGI Global, 2011

This book has three editors, and all of us are involved in image processing and computer vision research. We have contributed to the 3D imaging research, especially in the field of passive optical 3D shape recovery methods. Over the last decade, significant progress had been made in 3D imaging research. As a result, 3D imaging methods and techniques are being employed for various applications. The objective of this book is to present various 3D algorithms developed in the recent years and to investigate the application of 3D methods in various domains.

This book is divided into five sections. Section 1 presents various 3D imaging algorithms that are developed in recent years. It covers quite a variety of research fields including 3D mapping, holography, and 3D shape compression. Six chapters are included in Section 1. Section 2 deals with 3D shape recovery methods that fall in the optical passive as well as active domains. The topics covered in this section include shape from focus, shape from heating, and shape from fluorescence. Section 2 includes 5 chapters.

Section 3 is dedicated to stereoscopic vision and autostereoscopic vision. The dedication of a whole section to stereoscopic and autostereoscopic vision emphasizes the importance of these two technologies. Seven chapters are included in this section. Section 4 discusses 3D vision for robotic applications. The topics included in this section are 3D scene analysis for intelligent robotics and usage of stereo vision for various applications including fire detection and suppression in buildings. This section has three chapters.

Finally, Section 5 includes a variety of 3D imaging applications. The applications included in this section are 3D DMB player, 3D scanner, 3D mapping, morphological study of meteorite impact rocks, 3D tracking, 3D human body posture estimation, 3D face recognition, and 3D thumbnails for 3D videos. A total of nine chapters are included on several of the above mentioned applications in this section.

There are 31 chapters in this book. Chapter 1 is not included in any of the sections as it provides an introduction to 3D imaging. Chapter 1 briefly discusses the classification for 3D imaging. It provides an overview of the 3D consumer imaging products that are available commercially. It also discusses the future of 3D consumer electronics.