Evolving Intelligent Systems

Provides modern enterprises with the tools to create a robust digital platform utilizing proven best practices, practical models, and time-tested techniques Contemporary business organizations can either embrace the digital revolution—or be left behind. Enterprise Content and Search Management for Building Digital Platforms provides modern enterprises with the necessary tools to create a robust digital platform utilizing proven best practices, practical models, and time-tested techniques to compete in the today’s digital world. Features include comprehensive discussions on content strategy, content key performance indicators (KPIs), mobile-first strategy, content assessment models, various practical techniques and methodologies successfully used in real-world digital programs, relevant case studies, and more. Initial chapters cover core concepts of a content management system (CMS), including content strategy; CMS architecture, templates, and workflow; reference architectures, information architecture, taxonomy, and content metadata. Advanced CMS topics are then covered, with chapters on integration, content standards, digital asset management (DAM), document management, and content migration, evaluation, validation, maintenance, analytics, SEO, security, infrastructure, and performance. The basics of enterprise search technologies are explored next, and address enterprise search architecture, advanced search, operations, and governance. Final chapters then focus on enterprise program management and feature coverage of various concepts of digital program management and best practices—along with an illuminating end-to-end digital program case study. Offers a comprehensive guide to the understanding and learning of new methodologies, techniques, and models for the creation of an end-to-end digital system Addresses a wide variety of proven best practices and deployed techniques in content management and enterprise search space which can be readily used for digital programs Covers the latest digital trends such as mobile-first strategy, responsive design, adaptive content design, micro services architecture, semantic search and such and also utilizes sample reference architecture for implementing solutions Features numerous case studies to enhance comprehension, including a complete end-to-end digital program case study Provides readily usable content management checklists and templates for defining content strategy, CMS evaluation, search evaluation and DAM evaluation Comprehensive and cutting-edge, Enterprise Content and Search Management for Building Digital Platforms is an invaluable reference resource for creating an optimal enterprise digital eco-system to meet the challenges of today’s hyper-connected world.

This book describes the main classical combinatorial problems that can be encountered when designing a logistics network or driving a supply chain. It shows how these problems can be tackled by metaheuristics, both separately and using an integrated approach. A huge number of techniques, from the simplest to the most advanced ones, are given for helping the reader to implement efficient solutions that meet its needs. A lot of books have been written about metaheuristics (methods for solving hard optimization problems) and supply chain management (the field in which we find a huge number of combinatorial optimization problems) in the last decades. So, the main reason of this book is to describe how these methods can be implemented for this class of problems.

This book presents an algorithm for the detection of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal in a cognitive radio context by means of a joint and iterative channel and noise estimation technique. Based on the minimum mean square criterion, it performs an accurate detection of a user in a frequency band, by achieving a quasi-optimal channel and noise variance estimation if the signal is present, and by estimating the noise level in the band if the signal is absent. Organized into three chapters, the first chapter provides the background against which the system model is presented, as well as some basics concerning the channel statistics and the transmission of an OFDM signal over a multipath channel. In Chapter 2, the proposed iterative algorithm for the noise variance and the channel estimation is detailed, and in Chapter 3, an application of the algorithm for the free-band detection is proposed. In both Chapters 2 and 3, the principle of the algorithm is presented in a simple way, and more elaborate developments are also provided. The different assumptions and assertions in the developments and the performance of the proposed method are validated through simulations, and compared to methods of the scientific literature

Embedded systems are everywhere in contemporary life and are supposed to make our lives more comfortable. In industry, embedded systems are used to manage and control complex systems (e.g. nuclear power plants, telecommunications and flight control) and they are also taking an important place in our daily activities (e.g. smartphones, security alarms and traffic lights). In the design of embedded systems, memory allocation and data assignment are among the main challenges that electronic designers have to face. In fact, they impact heavily on the main cost metrics (power consumption, performance and area) in electronic devices. Thus designers of embedded systems have to pay careful attention in order to minimize memory requirements, thus improving memory throughput and limiting the power consumption by the system’s memory. Electronic designers attempt to minimize memory requirements with the aim of lowering the overall system costs. A state of the art of optimization techniques for memory management and data assignment is presented in this book.

A methodologically sophisticated, comprehensive approach to applying the Agile fixed-price contract to IT projects while maximizing customer and supplier relationships «Interesting and necessary for IT managers and IT lawyers.» —Walter J. Jaburek, Dipl.-Ing., Dr. iur., Dr. techn. Approximately 50 percent of software developers use Scrum, an iterative and incremental development method for managing software projects and product or application development, in their work. The benefit of Scrum and other Agile methods is that they can address shifts in a large project that traditional managerial methods cannot. Written by pioneers and leaders in the field of Agile and Scrum, Agile Contracts is the only book dedicated exclusively to the legal, procurement, and project management considerations of Agile contracts. Providing templates, a toolbox, and examples of Agile fixed-price contracts, the book presents an alternative option to fixed-price, time-based, and supply-based contracts—reducing the risk for both the supplier and the customer with a contract that offers the possibility of flux and flexible scenarios as a project progresses. Agile Contracts features in-depth chapter coverage of: The Agile Manifesto of 2001 Agility from the perspective of procurement and the software provider The problems with traditional fixed-price contracts and time material contracts What the Agile fixed-price contract is and how it is set up Tendering based on the Agile fixed-price contract How to negotiate an Agile fixed-price contract Special guidelines for the legal framework of an Agile fixed-price contract Adaptable Scope System The Black Swan scenario Contracts and procedures for the featured methodologies Especially applicable within highly structured business organizations, Agile Contracts is a must-read for project managers, agile practitioners, procurement representatives, and IT lawyers.