Mutative Media is a sweeping examination of how communication technologies have contributed to changes in people’s thoughts and actions, and thus in the power structures of societies, in the past, at present, and in four alternative futures.We start by surveying what is generally known about the emergence of human language and speech that has enabled humans to extend their organizing abilities beyond that of other hominids. We then review research on the emergence of signs...

Motivation for This Book The OPC Foundation provides specifications for data exchange in industrial au- mation. There is a long history of COM/DCOM-based specifications, most pro- nent OPC Data Access (DA), OPC Alarms and Events (A&E), and OPC Historical Data Access (HDA), which are widely accepted in the industry and implemented by almost every system targeting industrial automation. Now the OPC Foundation has released a new generation of OPC specifications called OPC Unified Architecture...

This textbook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of serious games, which differ considerably from computer games that are meant for pure entertainment.Undergraduate and graduate students from various disciplines who want to learn about serious games are one target group of this book. Prospective developers of serious games are another, as they can use the book for self-study in order to learn about the distinctive features of serious game design and development. And ultim...

Information and communication technologies can provide new paradigms in healthcare provision. In particular, new Pervasive Healthcare technologies can revolutionise the dynamics of healthcare, enabling people to remain at home for longer, at lower costs to health and welfare organisations.This book reveals how pervasive healthcare technologies can be designed in conjunction with users and carers, as well as exploring the application of novel methods and technologies.

This book presents medical image watermarking techniques and algorithms for telemedicine and other emerging applications. This book emphasizes on medical image watermarking to ensure the authenticity of transmitted medical information. It begins with an introduction of digital watermarking, important characteristics, novel applications, different watermarking attacks and standard benchmark tools. This book also covers spatial and transform domain medical image watermarking techniques and t...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on E-Learning, E-Education, and Online Training, eLEOT 2016, held in Dublin, Ireland, August 31 – September 2, 2016.The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. They focus on topics as augmented reality learning, blended learning, learning analytics, mobile learning, virtual learning environments.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the AVI 2016 Workshop on Road Mapping Infrastructures for Advanced Visual Interfaces Supporting Big Data Applications in Virtual Research Environments, AVI-BDA 2016, held in Bari, Italy, in June 2016.The 10 revised full papers in this volume present the elaborated outcome of the initial position papers capturing the results oft the roadmapping discussions in the workshop at which comments of several external...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference of the Immersive Learning Network, iLRN 2017, held in Coimbra, Portugal in June 2017.The proceedings contain 17 full papers together with 4 short papers, carefully reviewed and selected from 80 submissions. This year’s special focus is “Honoring Tradition, Immersed in the Future".

Multimedia computing has emerged in the last few years as a major area of research. Multimedia computer systems have opened a wide range of applications by combining a variety of information sources, such as voice, graphics, animation, images, audio and full-motion video. Looking at the big picture, multimedia can be viewed as the merging of three industries: computer, communications, and broadcasting industries.Research and development efforts can be divided into two areas. As the ...

Virtual reality (VR) is a multidisciplinary area of research aimed at interactive human–computer-mediated simulations of artificial environments. An important aspect of VR-based systems is the stimulation of the human senses – usually sight, sound, and touch – in such a way that a user feels a sense of presence in the virtual environment. Sometimes it is important to combine real and virtual objects in the same real or virtual environment. This approach is often referred to as augmented re...

International surgical meetings with thousands of participants speaking a dozen different languages tend to be frustrating for the individual who comes with the hope of learning about progress in his fields, but who additionally would like to be able to ex change ideas on controversial topics and to meet competent people with whom to discuss specific problems. In the "one-way" ses sions in which long papers are presented, details or specific points may be missed. Differing views often are ...

Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Information Technology and Software Engineering presents selected articles from this major event, which was held in Beijing, December 8-10, 2012. This book presents the latest research trends, methods and experimental results in the fields of information technology and software engineering, covering various state-of-the-art research theories and approaches. The subjects range from intelligent computing to informa...