Paulo Ferreira – författare

How could nanotechnology not perk the interest of any designer, engineer or architect? Exploring the intriguing new approaches to design that nanotechnologies offer, Nanomaterials, Nanotechnologies and Design is set against the sometimes fantastic sounding potential of this technology. Nanotechnology offers product engineers, designers, architects and consumers a vastly enhanced palette of materials and properties, ranging from the profound to the superficial. It is for engineering and design students and professionals who need to understand enough about the subject to apply it with real meaning to their own work.- World-renowned author team address the hot-topic of nanotechnology- The first book to address and explore the impacts and opportunities of nanotech for mainstream designers, engineers and architects- Full colour production and excellent design: guaranteed to appeal to everyone concerned with good design and the use of new materials

How could nanotechnology not perk the interest of any designer, engineer or architect? Exploring the intriguing new approaches to design that nanotechnologies offer, Nanomaterials, Nanotechnologies and Design is set against the sometimes fantastic sounding potential of this technology. Nanotechnology offers product engineers, designers, architects and consumers a vastly enhanced palette of materials and properties, ranging from the profound to the superficial. It is for engineering and design students and professionals who need to understand enough about the subject to apply it with real meaning to their own work. World-renowned author team address the hot-topic of nanotechnology The first book to address and explore the impacts and opportunities of nanotech for mainstream designers, engineers and architects Full colour production and excellent design: guaranteed to appeal to everyone concerned with good design and the use of new materials

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence hold the potential of significantly augmenting human cognitive and physical performance, giving light-speed and extreme accuracy to human systems and processes, contributing to overcome some of the most complex challenges that humankind faces nowadays. But intelligent technologies also pose high risks to human safety, autonomy and dignity and they can also negatively impact the environment affecting and even threatening the planet’s sustainability and the life of other species.By questioning the ontological status of intelligent tools, this book analyzes their level of efficiency and ethical performance, across distinct domains and settings, highlighting the role of standardisation, certification and governance in the production and deployment of beneficial intelligent systems.The present book is a fundamental reading both to academia and industry, i.e. to all those involved in the design, production and safe and ethical deployment of intelligent technologies.

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence hold the potential of significantly augmenting human cognitive and physical performance, giving light-speed and extreme accuracy to human systems and processes, contributing to overcome some of the most complex challenges that humankind faces nowadays. But intelligent technologies also pose high risks to human safety, autonomy and dignity and they can also negatively impact the environment affecting and even threatening the planet’s sustainability and the life of other species.By questioning the ontological status of intelligent tools, this book analyzes their level of efficiency and ethical performance, across distinct domains and settings, highlighting the role of standardisation, certification and governance in the production and deployment of beneficial intelligent systems.The present book is a fundamental reading both to academia and industry, i.e. to all those involved in the design, production and safe and ethical deployment of intelligent technologies.

Context-aware systems aim to deliver a rich user experience by taking into account the current user context (location, time, activity, etc.), possibly captured without his intervention. For example, cell phones are now able to continuously update a user’s location while, at the same time, users execute an increasing amount of activities online, where their actions may be easily captured (e.g. login in a web application) without user consent. In the last decade, this topic has seen numerous developments that demonstrate its relevance and usefulness. The trend was accelerated with the widespread availability of powerful mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) that include a myriad of sensors which enable applications to capture the user context. However, there are several challenges that must be addressed; we focus on scalability (large number of context aware messages) and privacy (personal data that may be propagated). This book is organized in five chapters starting with an introduction to the theme raising the most important challenges. Then, chapter two presents several important definitions (establishing a common ground for the following chapters) and taxonomy. These are important to chapter three which describes some of the most relevant distributed context-aware systems that can be classified according to the taxonomy. Privacy is addressed in chapter four and chapter five presents some important conclusions. The audience for this book is wide; researchers, students and professionals interested in the areas addressed will find the most relevant information regarding scalability and privacy in distributed context-aware systems.

Context-aware systems aim to deliver a rich user experience by taking into account the current user context (location, time, activity, etc.), possibly captured without his intervention. For example, cell phones are now able to continuously update a user’s location while, at the same time, users execute an increasing amount of activities online, where their actions may be easily captured (e.g. login in a web application) without user consent. In the last decade, this topic has seen numerous developments that demonstrate its relevance and usefulness. The trend was accelerated with the widespread availability of powerful mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) that include a myriad of sensors which enable applications to capture the user context. However, there are several challenges that must be addressed; we focus on scalability (large number of context aware messages) and privacy (personal data that may be propagated). This book is organized in five chapters starting with an introduction to the theme raising the most important challenges. Then, chapter two presents several important definitions (establishing a common ground for the following chapters) and taxonomy. These are important to chapter three which describes some of the most relevant distributed context-aware systems that can be classified according to the taxonomy. Privacy is addressed in chapter four and chapter five presents some important conclusions. The audience for this book is wide; researchers, students and professionals interested in the areas addressed will find the most relevant information regarding scalability and privacy in distributed context-aware systems.