The NeP4B project aims at the development of an advanced technological infrastructure for data sharing in a network of business partners. In this paper we leverage our distinct experiences on semantic and multimedia query routing, and propose an innovative mechanism for an effective and efficient unified data retrieval of both semantic and multimedia data in the context of the NeP4B project.

While identity management systems for the Internet are debated intensively identity management in mobile application has grown silently over the last 12 years. More then 980 million GSM subscriptions and the SIM infrastructure are the basis for many application oriented initiatives to manage identities. This paper discusses the technological foundations as well as the application scenarios and ...

By reviewing the existing literature and empirical investigation, we build a socalled Photosynthesis model which argues that a recipient developing country only achieves benefits from FDI once they have sufficient absorptive capacity related to human capital resource, absorptive capacity of domestic firm, financial systems, physical infrastructure, technological, and institutional development. ...

In contrast to the European historical experience, Africa's urban infrastructural systems are characterised by stagnation long before demand has been saturated. Water infrastructures have been stabilised as systems predominantly providing services for elites, with millions of poor people lacking basic services in the cities. What is puzzling is that so little emphasis has been placed on innovat...

Studies of infrastructure have demonstrated broad differences between Northern and Southern cities, and deconstructed urban theory derived from experiences of the networked urban regions of the Global North. This includes critiques of the universalisation of the historically–culturally produced normative ideal of universal, uniform infrastructure. In this commentary, we first introduce the noti...

Although current developments in ubiquitous and pervasive computing are driven largely by technological opportunities, they have radical implications not just for technology design but also for the ways in which we experience and interaction with computation. In particular, the move of computation “off the desktop” and into the world, whether embedded in the environment around us or carried or ...

Historically, organizations owned and controlled the information technologies (IT) their employees used: telephone, inter-office memos, mainframes and timesharing systems. Today, employees often want to use their own IT: not only personal smart phones and tablets, but also Twitter and Google Docs. This new trend can diversify and extend enterprise the IT infrastructure, but leaves organizations...

As the civilization enters into the new millennium, the words of 19th century have suddenly taken a new meaning. The world is undergoing a remarkable technological change. The advancement of Internet along with the expansion of IT infrastructure at large level has revolutionized the way in which information and communication technologies are stored and disseminated, and is creating lasting impl...