The present economic and social environment has given rise to new situations within which companies must operate. As a first example, the globalization of the economy and the need for performance has led companies to outsource and then to operate inside networks of enterprises such as supply chains or virtual enterprises. A second instance is related to environmental issues. The statement about the impact of ind- trial activities on the environment has led companies to revise processes, to save - ergy, to optimize transportation.... A last example relates to knowledge. Knowledge is considered today to be one of the main assets of a company. How to capitalize, to manage, to reuse it for the benefit of the company is an important current issue. The three examples above have no direct links. However, each of them constitutes a challenge that companies have to face today. This book brings together the opinions of several leading researchers from all around the world. Together they try to develop new approaches and find answers to those challenges. Through the individual ch- ters of this book, the authors present their understanding of the different challenges, the concepts on which they are working, the approaches they are developing and the tools they propose. The book is composed of six parts; each one focuses on a specific theme and is subdivided into subtopics.

In the last twenty years, several periods of turmoil have shaped the financial and economic system. Many regulatory policies, such as Basel III, have been introduced to overcome further crises and scandals. In addition, monetary policy has experienced a transition from conventional to unconventional frameworks in most industrialized and emerging economies. For instance, turning to hedge and diversification of portfolios, commodities markets have attracted increasing interest. More recently, new forms of money have been introduced, such as virtual money. These changes have influenced governance features at both macro and micro levels. Therefore, calls for ethical and sustainable standards in financial and economic spheres have been growing since 2007.Financial and Economic Systems: Transformations and New Challenges provides readers with insights about future transformations and challenges for financial and economic systems. Prominent contributors focus on different aspects, providing a global overview of crisis implications. The book is split into four main areas: Changes in the Real Sphere, covering issues related to yields, risk, unconventional monetary policy, and macroprudential policy; Financial Markets and Macroeconomics, covering uncertainty in finance and economics; CSR, Sustainability and Ethical Finance, highlighting the emergence of corporate social responsibility; and Digitalization, Blockchain and FinTech and the consequences of these transformations on markets and economic systems.

Much of a software architect’s life is spent designing software systems to meet a set of quality requirements. General software quality attributes include scalability, security, performance or reliability. Quality attribute requirements are part of an application’s non-functional requirements, which capture the many facets of how the functional - quirements of an application are achieved. Understanding, modeling and continually evaluating quality attributes throughout a project lifecycle are all complex engineering tasks whichcontinuetochallengethe softwareengineeringscienti ccommunity. While we search for improved approaches, methods, formalisms and tools that are usable in practice and can scale to large systems, the complexity of the applications that the so- ware industry is challenged to build is ever increasing. Thus, as a research community, there is little opportunity for us to rest on our laurels, as our innovations that address new aspects of system complexity must be deployed and validated. To this end the 5th International Conference on the Quality of Software Archit- tures (QoSA) 2009 focused on architectures for adaptive software systems. Modern software systems must often recon guretheir structure and behavior to respond to c- tinuous changes in requirements and in their execution environment. In these settings, quality models are helpful at an architectural level to guide systematic model-driven software development strategies by evaluating the impact of competing architectural choices.

For the past decade, the rapid development of the ergonomics disciplines as well as the fast growing economy in the Asian region have been attracting the attention of the international ergonomics community. Although East Asia has been changing from a traditional agriculture-oriented society into a modern industry-oriented society and its economy covers a great deal of shared interests across the continents, yet the ergonomics related knowledge and practice are still in its infancy. Because of the geographic proximity and a strong historical, cultural and technology affinity, it is vitally important to maintain good communication and cooperation among the individuals as well as among the ergonomics organizations in the region. This symposium, EAEFS, has provided supporting ergonomics organizations and interested participants a forum to exchange ideas, build friendship, foster greater understanding of and among these individuals and organizations, and develop perspectives concerning ergonomics issues in this region and beyond. This volume contains the selected papers presented at the Second East Asian Ergonomics Federation Symposium (EAEFS), held from October 4 - 8, 2011 at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. The Second EAEFS, endorsed by the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), aims to consolidate the established ties within East Asia and to extend the cooperation among ergonomics researchers, professionals, and practitioners in the region to other regions in Asia and the world. Senior scholars and leaders from Asian countries have shared their wisdom, experience, insights, and visions on past, current and future ergonomics efforts in Asia. The papers contributing to this book address the latest research and application in accordance with the theme of the symposium, "Ergonomics in Asia: Development, Opportunities and Challenges," and cover the following areas: Virtual Environments & Design, Aging & Work Ability, Usability & Interface, Biomechanics & Anthropometry, and Occupational Safety & Health.

This volume contains the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Second International Conference on Exascale Applications and Software, EASC 2014, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in April 2014. The 6 full papers presented together with 6 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 17 submissions. They are organized in two topical sections named: toward exascale scientific applications and development environment for exascale applications.

This book presents a panoramic look at the transformation of the transmission network in the context of the energy transition. It provides readers with basic definitions as well as details on current challenges and emerging technologies. In-depth chapters cover the integration of renewables, the particularities of planning large-scale systems, efficient reduction and solution methods, the possibilities of HVDC and super grids, distributed generation, smart grids, demand response, and new regulatory schemes. The content is complemented with case studies that highlight the importance of the power transmission network as the backbone of modern energy systems. This book will be a comprehensive reference that will be useful to both academics and practitioners.