New approaches and technologies are required to coordinate the interdependent interests of economic entities. Distributed decision making and self-organization become increasingly important where hierarchical planning reaches its limits. Therefore, innovative solutions have to face those challenges allowing especially for coordination and information processing between distributed entities. In particular market-based coordination mechanisms provide this opportunity; they can be efficiently combined with powerful technologies like software agents to build the flexible coordination infrastructures for today's and tomorrow's electronic business. Science and industry will have to collaborate. Not only to identify the challenges of the prospering information society and to bring them onto our research agendas. Consequently, the book at hand is targeted towards scientists and practitioners likewise.

This book aims to improve the understanding of smart service innovations. It contributes to evidence-based knowledge about service systems engineering and its embedding in service ecosystems, in particular how existing reference process models can be extended by considering actors, roles, activities and methods. At the same time, it aims to stimulate discussions on how methods from different disciplines can be used and combined for the development of various aspects of Smart Service Systems. Thus, the book offers support for practitioners to better organize and execute SSI projects and to develop internal competencies.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2011, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in October 2011. The 61 revised papers presented were carefully selected from numerous submissions. They provide a comprehensive overview of recent advances in various collaborative network (CN) domains and their applications with a particular focus on adaptation of the networks and their value creation, specifically emphasizing topics related to evolution from social networking to collaborative networks; social capital; value chains; co-creation of complex products; performance management; behavioral aspects in collaborative networks; collaborative networks planning and modeling; benefit analysis and sustainability issues, as well as including important technical and scientific challenges in applying CNs to areas such as advanced logistics networks, business process modeling, service orientation, and other emerging application domains such as ageing, tourism, crisis, and emergency scenarios.

The Internet confronts IT researchers, system designers, and application developers with completely new challenges and, as a fascinating new computing paradigm, agent technology has recently attracted broad interest and strong hopes for shaping the future information society. This monograph-like anthology is the first systematic guide to models and enabling technologies for the coordination of intelligent agents on the Internet and respective applications.

This text represents state-of-the-art trends and developments in the emerging field of engineering asset management as presented at the Sixth World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM) held in Cincinnati, OH, USA from October 3-5, 2011 The Proceedings of the WCEAM 2011 is an excellent reference for practitioners, researchers and students in the multidisciplinary field of asset management, covering topics such as: Asset condition monitoring and intelligent maintenance; Asset data warehousing, data mining and fusion; Asset performance and level-of-service models; Design and lifecycle integrity of physical assets; Deterioration and preservation models for assets; Education and training in asset management; Engineering standards in asset management; Fault diagnosis and prognostics; Financial analysis methods for physical assets; Human dimensions in integrated asset management; Information quality management; Information systems and knowledge management; Intelligent maintenance; Intelligent sensors and devices; Maintenance strategies in asset management; Optimization decisions in asset management; Prognostics & Health Management; Risk management in asset management; Strategic asset management; and Sustainability in asset management.

Football is arguably one of the most important sports in the world, and the marketing of football has become an increasingly important issue, as clubs and product owners need to generate more revenue from the sport. In a wider context, football marketing has also become a benchmarking standard for other sports to learn from worldwide. The practices and processes of such an established industry are important lessons for those sports which are yet to maximise on their potential earnings, and provide interesting lessons in sports marketing in general. Marketing and Football: an international approach is the first book to provide a comprehensive and entirely global approach to this subject. Written by an international team of contributors who are keen researchers in the field, it examines in two parts: the study of football marketing in Europe and the development of a marketing dedicated to football, with the question of the European example being used worldwide. A ground breaking text, it provides the reader with: * Contributions from the UK, Norway, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, Scotland, Brazil, Japan, USA, Canada, Argentina, Korea and Australia * Interviews with professional sports marketers representing some of the biggest clubs worldwide: Juventus Turin, FC Barcelona, Milan AC, Inter Milan, AS Rome, Olympique Lyonnais, Vicenza, SE Palmeiras, Atletico Mineiro, Atletico PR Marketing and Football: an international approach is a seminal text which will pave the way for future academics and practitioners to work, it is the first book to discuss and move towards a marketing dedicated to football.

The Routledge Handbook of Service Research Insights and Ideas offers authoritative coverage of current scholarship in the expanding discipline of service research. Original chapters from the world’s leading specialists in the discipline explore foundations and innovations in services, highlighting important issues relating to service providers, customers, and service design. The volume goes beyond previous publications by drawing together material from different functional areas, including marketing, human resource management, and service process design and operations. These topics are important in helping readers become knowledgeable about how different functional areas interact to create a successful customer experience. This book is ideal as a first port of call for postgraduate students desiring to get up to speed quickly in the services discipline. It is also a must-read for academics new to services who want to access cutting-edge research.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium, APNOMS 2006. The book presents 50 revised full papers and 25 revised short papers, organized in topical sections on management of ad hoc and sensor networks, network measurements and monitoring, mobility management, QoS management, management architectures and models, security management, E2E QoS and application management, management experience, NGN management, and IP-based network management.

S-Cube’s Foundations for the Internet of Services Today’s Internet is standing at a crossroads. The Internet has evolved from a source of information to a critical infrastructure which underpins our lives and economies. The demand for more multimedia content, more interconnected devices, more users, a richer user experience, services available any time and anywhere increases the pressure on existing networks and service platforms. The Internet needs a fundamental rearrangement to be ready to meet future needs. One of the areas of research for the Future Internet is the Internet of S- vices, a vision of the Internet where everything (e. g. , information, software, platforms and infrastructures) is available as a service. Services available on the Internet of Services can be used by anyone (if they are used according to the policies de?ned by the provider) and they can be extended with new services by anyone. Advantages of the Internet of Services include the p- sibility to build upon other people’s e?orts and the little investment needed upfront to develop an application. The risk involved in pursuing new business ideas is diminished, and might lead to more innovative ideas being tried out in practice. It will lead to the appearance of new companies that are able to operate in niche areas, providing services to other companies that will be able to focus on their core business.