Many challenges lie ahead in the development of a global information society. Culture and democracy are two areas which may be under particular threat. The book reflects on today's complex and uncertain cultural and democratic developments arising as a result of an increasingly global, technologically-connected world. In particular it focuses on the Internet, examining new metaphors for communication, defining the issues at stake and proposing options, actions and solutions. Among the issues discussed were: multi-cultural developments; cultural sensitivities and the involvement of cultural...

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the design of computer and communication systems that can aid the management process. 1.1 Historical Overview We propose that Decision Support System can be considered as a design conception conceived within the computer industry to facilitate the use of computer technology in organisations (Keen, 1991). This framework, built during the late 1970s, offers computer and communication technology as support to the decision process which constitutes, in this view, the core of the management process. The DSS framework offers...

During the last two decades we have seen a tremendous development within the computer and communication industry. The ever increasing density on silicon, the increasing transmission speeds on fiber based systems as well as twisted pairs, the revolutionary development in the wireless area and of course the Internet have all led to many opportunities for new service developments. It is interesting to note that the last time this conference was held three years ago, the Web really did not fully exist. We are now ready to face new interesting challenges. It is an utmost importance for the...

This book constitutes the Proceedings of the IFIP Working Conference PRO- COMET'98, held 8-12 June 1998 at Shelter Island, N.Y. The conference is organized by the t'wo IFIP TC 2 Working Groups 2.2 Formal Description of Programming Concepts and 2.3 Programming Methodology. WG2.2 and WG2.3 have been organizing these conferences every four years for over twenty years. The aim of such Working Conferences organized by IFIP Working Groups is to bring together leading scientists in a given area of computer science. Participation is by invitation only. As a result, these conferences distinguish...

With the proliferation of ISDN and mobile communication systems, modern commu- nication networks are becoming larger-scale, higher-speed, and more complex than ever before. Therefore, besides hardware development, extensive research on system technolo- gies with respect to the performance evaluation and management is indispensable for the proper design, development and operation of future complex communication networks. The International Conference on the Performance and Management of Complex Com- munication Systems (PMCCN '97) was held from November 17 to 21, 1997, at Tsukuba Science City,...

Towards Intelligent Manufacturing Systems This book contains the selected articles from the third International Conference on lriformation Technology for Balanced Automation Systems in Manufacturing. A rapid evolution in a number of areas leading to Intelligent Manufacturing Systems has been observ@d in recent years. Significant efforts are being spent on this research area, namely in terms of international cooperative projects, like the IMS initiative, the USA NIIIP (National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols) project, or the European ESPRIT programme, and a growing number of...

The volume contains the papers presented at the fifth working conference on Communications and Multimedia Security (CMS 2001), held on May 21-22, 2001 at (and organized by) the GMD -German National Research Center for Information Technology GMD - Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute IPSI, in Darmstadt, Germany. The conference is arranged jointly by the Technical Committees 11 and 6 of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) The name "Communications and Multimedia Security" was first used in 1995, Reinhard Posch organized the first in this series of...

Given the pervasive nature of information technology and information systems in the modern world, the design and development of IS and IT are critical issues of concern. New research topics continuously emerge in tandem with the latest developments in technology-E-Business, Knowledge Management, Business Process Reengineering, for example. However, when the initial flurry of research abates and the "gloss" of these areas has diminished somewhat, as it inevitably does, the enduring core issue remains as to how to develop systems to fully exploit these new areas. Both information systems and...

The growth of telecommunications has been largely based on mobile and data services in the past 10 years and the growth will continue. For instance, it is forecasted that after 2005 the mobile traffic turnover in Europe will exceed that of fixed telephone traffic and the penetration of Internet access through mobile will exceed that of fixed access. It is expected that the new value added services will be Internet-based and the IP traffic will outweigh the amount of traditional ISDN based telephone traffic. The transition from the existing telecommunications services to mobile and Internet...

FORTE 2001, formerly FORTE/PSTV conference, is a combined conference of FORTE (Formal Description Techniques for Distributed Systems and Communication Protocols) and PSTV (Protocol Specification, Testing and Verification) conferences. This year the conference has a new name FORTE (Formal Techniques for Networked and Distributed Systems). The previous FORTE began in 1989 and the PSTV conference in 1981. Therefore the new FORTE conference actually has a long history of 21 years. The purpose of this conference is to introduce theories and formal techniques applicable to various engineering...