Information Systems Development (ISD) progresses rapidly, continually creating new challenges for the professionals involved. New concepts, approaches and techniques of systems development emerge constantly in this field. Progress in ISD comes from research as well as from practice.

This conference will discuss issues pertaining to information systems development (ISD) in the inter-networked digital economy. Participants will include researchers, both experienced and novice, from industry and academia, as well as students and practitioners. Themes will include methods and approaches for ISD; ISD education; philosophical, ethical, and sociological aspects of ISD; as well as specialized tracks such as: distributed software development, ISD and knowledge management, ISD and electronic business / electronic government, ISD in public sector organizations, IOS.

In recent years, scholars have emphasized the need for more holistic subsistence analyses, and collaborative publications towards this endeavor have become more numerous in the literature. However, there are relatively few attempts to qualitatively integrate zooarchaeological (animal) and paleoethnobotanical (plant) data, and even fewer attempts to quantitatively integrate these two types of subsistence evidence. Given the vastly different methods used in recovering and quantifying these data, not to mention their different preservational histories, it is no wonder that so few have undertaken this problem.

Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany takes the lead in tackling this important issue by addressing the methodological limitations of data integration, proposing new methods and innovative ways of using established methods, and highlighting case studies that successfully employ these methods to shed new light on ancient foodways. The volume challenges the perception that plant and animal foodways are distinct and contends that the separation of the analysis of archaeological plant and animal remains sets up a false dichotomy between these portions of the diet. In advocating qualitative and quantitative data integration, the volume establishes a clear set of methods for (1) determining the suitability of data integration in any particular case, and (2) carrying out an integrated qualitative or quantitative approach.

Open Source Applications
Springer Book Series
Editor: Ernesto Damiani, University of Milan, Italy
http://sesar.dti.unimi.it/ossbook/

Open Source Software for Digital Forensics is the first book dedicated to the use of FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) in computer forensics. It presents the motivations for using FLOSS applications as tools for collection, preservation and analysis of digital evidence in computer and network forensics. It also covers, extensively, several forensic FLOSS tools, their origins and evolution.

Open Source Software for Digital Forensics is based on the OSSCoNF workshop, which was held in Milan, Italy, September 2008 at the World Computing Congress, co-located with OSS 2008. This edited volume is a collection of contributions from researchers and practitioners world wide.

Open Source Software for Digital Forensics is designed for advanced level students and researchers in computer science as a secondary text and reference book. Computer programmers, software developers, and digital forensics professionals will also find this book to be a valuable asset.

As we enter the 21st century, there is an urgent need for new approaches to mathematics education emphasizing its relevance in young learners’ futures. Modeling Students’ Mathematical Modeling Competencies explores the vital trend toward using real-world problems as a basis for teaching mathematics skills, competencies, and applications. Blending theoretical constructs and practical considerations, the book presents papers from the latest conference of the ICTMA, beginning with the basics (Why are models necessary? Where can we find them?) and moving through intricate concepts of how students perceive math, how instructors teach—and how both can become better learners. Dispatches as varied as classroom case studies, analyses of math in engineering work, and an in-depth review of modeling-based curricula in the Netherlands illustrate modeling activities on the job, methods of overcoming math resistance, and the movement toward replicable models and lifelong engagement.

A sampling of topics covered:

• How students recognize the usefulness of mathematics
• Creating the modeling-oriented classroom
• Assessing and evaluating students’ modeling capabilities
• The relationship between modeling and problem-solving
• Instructor methods for developing their own models of modeling
• New technologies for modeling in the classroom

Modeling Students’ Mathematical Modeling Competencies offers welcome clarity and focus to the international research and professional community in mathematics, science, and engineering education, as well as those involved in the sciences of teaching and learning these subjects.

Pediatric brain tumors are a tremendous challenge for the treating physician. Their diverse biological behaviors, in the unique context of the developing nervous system, require fl exible and tailored treatment plans. In the last 20 years, there has been an exponential increase in our understanding of the molecular and genetic basis of human malignancy. We are just now seeing the promise of this knowledge translate into biologically-directed therapies being routinely tested in collaborative research networks. The effectiveness of these new agents, however, remain undefi ned.

The goal of this textbook is to provide a current, biologically-based perspective of the management of central nervous system tumors in children. Rather than present every tumor type in an encyclopedic manner, the common tumor types encountered in clinical practice are presented in the initial chapters. The epidemiology, pathological features, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment are discussed for each tumor type. We have separated high- and lowgrade glial tumors into separate chapters, mainly because the management and outcome for these two classes of tumors are very different. In the fi nal chapters, many of the diagnostic and treatment modalities common to all tumors are discussed with an emphasis on emerging and experimental techniques. For the second edition, new chapters have been added: Rare Tumors (Chap. 11) and Late Effects and Palliative Care (Chap. 17). A valuable resource is the WHO classifi cation of tumors of the central nervous system; the fourth edition of which was published in 2007 (Louis et al. 2007).

Extensive research into the molecular mechanisms of cancer disease has heralded a new age of targeted therapy. In malignant cells, key proteins that are crucial to tumor growth and survival are now being targeted directly with rationally designed inhibitors. Apart from monoclonal antibodies, small molecule therapeutics such as oncogenic protein kinase inhibitors are attracting a vast amount of investigational attention. This textbook, written by acknowledged experts, provides a broad overview of the small molecules currently used for the treatment of malignant diseases and discusses interesting novel compounds that are in the process of clinical development to combat cancer.

Since its beginnings, science education has been under the influence of psychological theories of knowing and learning, while in more recent years, social constructivist and sociological frameworks have also begun to emerge. With little work being done on showing how the perspectives of these separate approaches might be integrated, this work aims to plug the gap. The book helps lay the groundwork for reuniting sociological and psychological perspectives on the knowing, learning, and teaching of science. Featuring a range of integrative efforts beginning with simple conversation, the chapters here include not only articles but also commentaries that engage with other papers, as well as a useful running narrative that, from the introduction to the epilogue, contextualizes the book and its sections. Specific attention is given to cultural-historical activity theory, which already offers an integration of psychological and cultural-historical (sociological) perspectives on collectively motivated human activities. A number of chapters, as well as the contextualizing narrative, explicitly use this theory as a framework for rethinking science education to achieve the reunification that is the goal of this work.

All the contributors to this volume have produced texts that contribute to the effort of overcoming the extant divide between sociological and psychological approaches to science education research and practice. From very different positions—gender, culture, race—they provide valuable insights to reuniting approaches in both theory and method in the field. As an ensemble, the contributions constitute a rich menu of ideas from which new forms of science education can emerge.

Talbot Brewer presents an invigorating new approach to ethical theory, in the context of human selfhood and agency. The first main theme of the book is that contemporary ethical theorists have focused too narrowly on actions and the discrete episodes of deliberation through which we choose them, and that the subject matter of the field looks quite different if one looks instead at unfolding activities and the continuous forms of evaluative awareness that carry them forward and that constitute an essential element of those activities. The second is that ethical reflection is itself a centrally important life activity, and that philosophical ethics is an extension of this practical activity rather than a merely theoretical reflection upon it.

Brewer's approach is founded on a far-reaching reconsideration of the notions of the nature and sources of human agency, and particularly of the way in which practical thinking gives shape to activities, relationships and lives. He contests the usual understanding of the relationship between philosophical psychology and ethics. The Retrieval of Ethics shows the need for a new contemplative vision of the point or value of human action--without which we will remain unable to make optimal sense of our efforts to unify our lives around a tenable conception of how best to live them, or of the yearnings that draw us to our ideals and to each other.