The present book covers topics both on fluvial and lagoon morphodynamics. The first part is dedicated to tidal environments. Topics include an overview of main morphological features and mechanisms of estuaries and tidal channels and a model devoted to investigate flow field pattern and bed topography in tidal meandering channels and a comparison with recent observational evidence of meanders within different tidal environments. The general failure of Bagnold hypothesis when applied to equilibrium bedload transport at even relatively modest transverse slope is demonstrated. A new model is then proposed based on an empirical entrainment formulation of bed grains.

Personalization is ubiquitous from search engines to online-shopping websites helping us find content more efficiently and this book focuses on the key developments that are shaping our daily online experiences. With advances in the detection of end users’ emotions, personality, sentiment and social signals, researchers and practitioners now have the tools to build a new generation of personalized systems that will really understand the user’s state and deliver the right content. With leading experts from a vast array of domains from user modeling, mobile sensing and information retrieval to artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction (HCI) social computing and psychology, a broad spectrum of topics are covered. From discussing psychological theoretical models and exploring state-of-the-art methods for acquiring emotions and personality in an unobtrusive way, as well as describing how these concepts can be used to improve various aspects of the personalization process and chapters that discuss evaluation and privacy issues. Emotions and Personality in Personalized Systems will help aid researchers and practitioners develop and evaluate user-centric personalization systems that take into account the factors that have a tremendous impact on our decision-making – emotions and personality.

This textbook introduces the theoretical foundations of technologies essential for knowledge graphs. It also covers practical examples, applications and tools. Knowledge graphs are the most recent answer to the challenge of providing explicit knowledge about entities and their relationships by potentially integrating billions of facts from heterogeneous sources. The book is structured in four parts. For a start, Part I lays down the overall context of knowledge graph technology. Part II “Knowledge Representation” then provides a deep understanding of semantics as the technical core of knowledge graph technology. Semantics is covered from different perspectives, such as conceptual, epistemological and logical. Next, Part III “Knowledge Modelling” focuses on the building process of knowledge graphs. The book focuses on the phases of knowledge generation, knowledge hosting, knowledge assessment, knowledge cleaning, knowledge enrichment, and knowledge deployment to cover a complete life cycle for this process. Finally, Part IV (simply called “Applications”) presents various application areas in detail with concrete application examples as well as an outlook on additional trends that will emphasize the need for knowledge graphs even stronger. This textbook is intended for graduate courses covering knowledge graphs. Besides students in knowledge graph, Semantic Web, database, or information retrieval classes, also advanced software developers for Web applications or tools for Web data management will learn about the foundations and appropriate methods.

This book provides an in-depth insight into the emerging paradigm of End-User Development (EUD), discussing the diversity and potential for creating effective environments for end users. Containing a unique set of contributions from a number of international researchers and institutes, many relevant issues are discussed and solutions proposed, making important aspects of end-user development research available to a broader audience. Most people are familiar with the basic functionality and interfaces of computers. However, developing new or modified applications that can effectively support users' goals still requires considerable programming expertise that cannot be expected of everyone. One of the fundamental challenges that lie ahead is the development of environments that enable users with little or no programming experience to develop and modify their own applications. The ultimate goal is to empower people to flexibly employ and personalise advanced inform ation and communication technologies.

This book contains revised selected papers from the Second International Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment, ECLAP 2013, held in Porto, Portugal, in April 2013. The 24 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. They are organized in topical sections named: perspectives and (digital) strategies for cultural heritage institutions; trust, quality and tools for cultural heritage digital libraries; educational services for the performing arts; dance in the world of data and objects; acting and natural interaction; and music and opera of a digital generation.

The contributed volume aims to explicate and address the difficulties and challenges for the seamless integration of two core disciplines of computer science, i.e., computational intelligence and data mining. Data Mining aims at the automatic discovery of underlying non-trivial knowledge from datasets by applying intelligent analysis techniques. The interest in this research area has experienced a considerable growth in the last years due to two key factors: (a) knowledge hidden in organizations’ databases can be exploited to improve strategic and managerial decision-making; (b) the large volume of data managed by organizations makes it impossible to carry out a manual analysis. The book addresses different methods and techniques of integration for enhancing the overall goal of data mining. The book helps to disseminate the knowledge about some innovative, active research directions in the field of data mining, machine and computational intelligence, along with some current issues and applications of related topics.