Evolutionary computing paradigms offer robust and powerful adaptive search mechanisms for system design. This book includes thirteen chapters covering a wide area of topics in evolutionary computing and applications including: Introduction to evolutionary computing in system design; evolutionary neuro-fuzzy systems; evolution of fuzzy controllers; genetic algorithms for multi-classifier design; evolutionary grooming of traffic; evolutionary particle swarms; fuzzy logic systems using genetic algorithms; evolutionary algorithms and immune learning for neural network-based controller design; distributed problem solving using evolutionary learning; evolutionary computing within grid environment; evolutionary game theory in wireless mesh networks; hybrid multiobjective evolutionary algorithms for the sailor assignment problem; evolutionary techniques in hardware optimization. This book will be useful to researchers in intelligent systems with interest in evolutionary computing, application engineers and system designers. The book can also be used by students and lecturers as an advanced reading material for courses on evolutionary computing.

Semantic Web services promise to automate tasks such as discovery, mediation, selection, composition, and invocation of services, enabling fully flexible automated e-business. Their usage, however, still requires a significant amount of human intervention due to the lack of support for a machine-processable description.

In this book, Jos de Bruijn and his coauthors lay the foundations for understanding the requirements that shape the description of the various aspects related to Semantic Web services, such as the static background knowledge in the form of ontologies, the functional description of the service, and the behavioral description of the service. They introduce the Web Service Modeling Language (WSML), which provides means for describing the functionality and behavior of Web services, as well as the underlying business knowledge, in the form of ontologies, with a conceptual grounding in the Web Service Modeling Ontology.

Academic and industrial researchers as well as professionals will find a comprehensive overview of the concepts and challenges in the area of Semantic Web services, the Web Services Modeling Language and its relation to the Web Services Modeling Ontology, and an in-depth treatment of both enabling technologies and theoretical foundations.

About the Author

Jos de Bruijn received his Master of Science degree in Technical Informatics from the Delft, University of Technology, The Netherlands, in 2003. Since 2003 he is employed as a researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. His research interests include Semantic Web (Services) languages, Logical languages, Logic Programming and Non-Monotonic Reasoning. He is the main architect of the WSML language.

Dieter Fensel is the Scientific Director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2003, and the Director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the Leopold Franzens University of Innsbruck, Austria in 2006. His current research interests are around the usage of semantics in 21st century computer science.

Wikis are Web-based applications that allow all users not only to view pages but also to change them. The success of the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia has drawn increasing attention from private users, small organizations and enterprises to the various possible uses of wikis.

Their simple structure and straightforward operation make them a serious alternative to expensive content management systems and also provide a basis for many applications in the area of collaborative work. We show the practical use of wikis in carrying out projects for users as well as for maintainers. This includes a step-by-step introduction to wiki philosophy, social effects and functions, a survey of their controls and components, and the installation and configuration of the wiki clones MediaWiki, TWiki and Confluence. In order to exemplify the possibilities of the software, we use it as a project tool for planning a conference.

About the Author

Anja Ebersbach is an information scientist. She is a university and technical college instructor, and is also active as a freelance IT trainer. She is working on her dissertation on the topic of "Wikis as Tools of Scientific Work."

Markus Glaser, also an information scientist, primarily works as a web and application programmer, where he specializes in MediaWiki and TWiki systems.

Dr. Richard Heigl, a historian, works as a freelance instructor, IT trainer and moderator of large group seminars. He is primarily occupied with the planning and moderation of wiki projects.

Alexander Warta, information scientist, is a doctoral candidate employed at Robert Bosch GmbH in Stuttgart. He is a specialist for the wiki software Confluence.

This book is the first volume of a running series under the title International Handbooks on Information Systems. The series is edited by Peter Bernus, Jacek Blazewicz, Günter Schmidt and Mike Shaw. One objective is to give state of the art surveys on selected topics of information systems theory and applications. To this end, a distinguished international group of academics and practitioners are invited to provide a reference source not only for problem solvers in business, industry, and government but also for professional researchers and graduate students.

It seemed appropriate to start the series with a volume covering some basic aspects about information systems. The focus of the first volume is therefore architectures. It was decided to have a balanced number of contributions from academia and practitioners. The structure of the material follows a differentiation betweeen modelling languages, tools and methodologies. These are collected into separate parts, allowing the reader of the handbook a better comparison of the contributions.

Information systems are a major component of the entire enterprise and the reader will notice that many contributions could just as easily have been included in another volume of the series which is on enterprise integration. Conversely, some traditionally information systems topics, as organisational analysis and strategic change management methods, will be treated in more depth in the Handbook on Enterprise Integration. The two volumes will complement each other.

The second edition of this volume is a representative survey on the most important results on Architectures of Information Systems which are presented by prominent experts. We have to thank not only the contributors for their effort but also various colleagues who helped us by suggesting relevant topics and qualified authors. The editors acknowledge the role of the advisory board members: Andy Bond, Guy Doumeingts, Keith Duddy, Mark Fox, Tom Gruber, Ted Goranson, Rudolf Haggenmüller, Linda Harvey, Matthias Jarke, Jim Melton, Chris Menzel, John Mylopoulos, Elmar J. Sinz, Riitta Smeds, François Vernadat.

One of the challenges was a technical one. We had to compile text and graphics together generated by distributed software systems from all over the world. Jörg Winckler and Anett Wagner for the second edition expertly resolved not only this problem with a number of supporters who are too many to name them all. We sincerely thank them for their help and support.