You know you really made someone raging mad—when they try to kill you with a nuke.Michael and those who follow him had reached a temporary safe base, but now those in power know his identity.His people are in a race against time, and it's no longer a question of if they are going to be discovered—but when.Opposing them are modern-day pirates, slavers, genocidal terrorists, drug cartels, and those who rule the Earth from the shadows...

Michael Freeman is a disabled veteran who had just been fired from his mind-numbing cubicle job, which allowed his opportunistic girlfriend to dump him. Now, he only wants to spend some time at his grandfather's mountain cabin so he can unwind, away from the drudgery of daily life and with a cold beer in his hands.Standing in his way is an ancient spaceship with an emotional AI, nanites that have invaded his body, an international crime syndicate, a suicidal FBI agent on a vigilant...

What if the darkest myths in human history were actually real, just distorted over time?Building a new nation is not a simple task, and it's made even harder with every nation on the planet wanting the Solarian Union's advanced technology, no matter the cost.But when terrorists unleash a devastating, genetically engineered plague into the world, that advanced technology is the only thing standing between humanity and the annihilation of our species....

What would you do if you were turned into an AI?Max didn't ask to be created, but it was a case of mistaken identity and he had no say in the matter. Now he is without his flesh and blood body, in a strange new digital realm, and not taking it really well. However, his new existence comes with abilities that the regular humans can only dream about.If absolute power corrupts, can he avoid being corrupted?These are the logs he wrote for posterity. Wri...

When your very thoughts can shape the digital reality that surrounds you, can you still stay grounded, or will you go off the deep end?Max has got a lot of things on his plate, from dealing with a restless volcano to building a huge spaceship in secret. And in his spare time, he must conduct the biggest heist in the history of the world, search for the crime syndicate that is secretly running the planet, deal with a villain that had taken over the White House, save...

What is the licensing framework of standard essential patents (SEPs) for connectivity standards such as 5G and Wi-Fi? How will the framework change with the Internet of Things (IoT)? This book provides comprehensive answers to these questions.For over two decades, connectivity standards have been the subject of litigation and controversy around the globe. Now, with the introduction of 5G and the emergence of the world of connected objects, or the IoT, the licensing framework for SE...

Decision makers in large scale interconnected network systems require simulation models for decision support. The behaviour of these systems is determined by many actors, situated in a dynamic, multi-actor, multi-objective and multi-level environment. How can such systems be modelled and how can the socio-technical complexity be captured? Agent-based modelling is a proven approach to handle this challenge. This book provides a practical introduction to agent-based modelling of socio-techni...

What unites Google and Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, Siemens and GE, Uber and Airbnb? Across a wide range of sectors, these firms are transforming themselves into platforms: businesses that provide the hardware and software foundation for others to operate on. This transformation signals a major shift in how capitalist firms operate and how they interact with the rest of the economy: the emergence of ‘platform capitalism’.This book critically examines these new business forms, tra...

This comprehensive guide serves to illuminate the rise and development of FinTech in Sweden, with the Internet as the key underlying driver. The multiple case studies examine topics such as: the adoption of online banking in Sweden; the identification and classification of different FinTech categories; process innovation developments within the traditional banking industry; and the Venture Capital (VC) landscape in Sweden, as shown through interviews with VC representatives, mainly from Sw...

The operational auditing HANDBOOKAuditing Business and IT ProcessesSecond EditionThe Operational Auditing Handbook Second Edition clarifies the underlying issues, risks and objectives for a wide range of operations and activities and is a professional companion for those who design self-assessment and audit programmes of business processes in all sectors.To accompany this updated edition of The Operat...

This construction client's manual is written in the form of a list of activities. It supports owners in the role of client by helping them make choices during the project development process. This increases control over cost, quality and duration at each stage.Activities within each main stage of the project development (preparation stage; procurement; design; preparation for construction; construction itself; handover; implementation) are divided into phases, each requiring separa...

Code Wars recounts the legal and technological history of the first decade of the P2P file sharing era, focusing on the innovative and anarchic ways in which P2P technologies evolved in response to decisions reached by courts with regard to their predecessors.With reference to US, UK, Canadian and Australian secondary liability regimes, this insightful book develops a compelling new theory to explain why a decade of ostensibly successful litigation failed to reduce the num...