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One of the main motivations associated with the adoption of electronic commerce (e‐commerce) is the integration and automation of business processes. Yet, for many years the integration of systems has been a barrier to business process automation. However, a new generation of software called application integration (AI) efficiently addresses integration problems and leads to more flexible and maintainable solutions. AI incorporates functionality from disparate applications through a diversity of integration technologies. Regardless, confusion surrounding terminology in the integration area has led to a debate regarding the capabilities of AI, as each term proposes a different range of AI technologies. Therefore, there appears a clear need to clarify this confusion. In doing so, a novel taxonomy is proposed, which is based on the critical analysis and evaluation of existing case studies extrapolated from the AI literature. The proposed taxonomy separates AI into intra‐organisational AI, hybrid AI and inter‐organisational AI. The novelty of the taxonomy centres on the synthesis of a comprehensive set of systems that efficiently describe the range of AI technology in terms of application. In doing so, the taxonomy presented will allow developers and integrators to navigate better through the portfolio of integration technologies and therefore better understand the integration area. The proposed taxonomy might also be used as a tool for decision making.

Neural networks and expert systems are two major branches of artificial intelligence (AI). Their emergence has created the potential for a new generation of computer‐based applications in the area of financial decision making. Both systems are used by financial institutions and corporations for a variety of new applications from credit scoring to bond rating to detection of credit card fraud. While both systems belong to the applied field of artificial intelligence, there are many differences between them which differentiate their potential capabilities in the field of business. Presents an analysis of both neural networks and expert systems applications in terms of their capabilities and weaknesses. Uses examples of financial applications of expert systems and neural networks to provide a unified context for the comparison.

This monograph defines distributed intelligence and discusses the relationship of distributed intelligence to data base, justifications for using the technique, and the approach to successful implementation of the technique. The approach is then illustrated by reference to a case study of experience in Birds Eye Foods. The planning process by which computing strategy for the company was decided is described, and the planning conclusions reached to date are given. The current state of development in the company is outlined and the very real savings so far achieved are specified. Finally, the main conclusions of the monograph are brought together. In essence these conclusions are that major savings are achievable using distributed intelligence, and that the implementation of a company data processing plan can be made quicker and simpler by its use. However, careful central control must be maintained so as to avoid fragmentation of machine, language skills, and application taking place.

Rather than organize as traditional firms, many of today’s companies organize as platforms that sit at the nexus of multiple exchange and production relationships. This chapter considers a most basic question of organization in platform contexts: the choice of boundaries. Herein, I investigate how classical economic theories of firm boundaries apply to platform-based organization and empirically study how executives made boundary choices in response to changing market and technical challenges in the early mobile computing industry (the predecessor to today’s smartphones). Rather than a strict or unavoidable tradeoff between “openness-versus-control,” most successful platform owners chose their boundaries in a way to simultaneously open-up to outside developers while maintaining coordination across the entire system.

Changes in market and production profiles require a more flexible concept in manufacturing. Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) describes an integrative concept for joining business and manufacturing islands. In this context, database technology is the key technology for implementing the CIM philosophy. However, CIM applications are more complex and thus more demanding than traditional database applications such as business and administrative applications. Systematically analyses the database requirements for CIM applications including business and manufacturing tasks. Special emphasis is given on integration requirements due to the distributed, partly isolated nature of CIM applications developed over the years. An illustrative sampling of current efforts in the database community to meet the challenge of non‐standard applications such as CIM is presented.

This paper describes a multistrategy knowledge‐based framework for supporting human experts in assessing applications for the house renovation grant system (HRGS). This framework integrates different problem solving strategies as set up by the task analysis. The task analysis carried out in the context of the HRGS domain decomposed the overall task into a number of subtasks and problem solving methods for performing each subtask. The framework modularises the knowledge required to solve each subtask into historical cases, objects, procedures and domain models. The framework was implemented as a computer system using Kappa‐PC which is a shell designed for implementing knowledge‐based systems. The implementation followed the client centred approach (CCA) method. This computer application has been successful in demonstrating that a multistrategy knowledge base can be used to support human experts in assessing applications for the HRGS. Therefore, the application has proved to perform as accurately as human experts do for all of the subtasks set up by the task analysis.

Grey modeling technique is an important element of grey system theory, and academic articles applied to agricultural science research have been published since 1985, proving the broad applicability and effectiveness of the technique from different aspects and providing a new means to solve agricultural science problems. The analysis of the connotation and trend of the application of grey modeling technique in agricultural science research contributes to the enrichment of grey technique and the development of agricultural science in multiple dimensions.

Based on the relevant literature selected from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the Web of Science, SpiScholar and other databases in the past 37 years (1985–2021), this paper firstly applied the bibliometric method to quantitatively visualize and systematically analyze the trend of publication, productive author, productive institution, and highly cited literature. Then, the literature is combed by the application of different grey modeling techniques in agricultural science research, and the literature research progress is systematically analyzed.

The results show that grey model technology has broad prospects in the field of agricultural science research. Agricultural universities and research institutes are the main research forces in the application of grey model technology in agricultural science research, and have certain inheritance. The application of grey model technology in agricultural science research has wide applicability and precise practicability.

By analyzing and summarizing the application trend of grey model technology in agricultural science research, the research hotspot, research frontier and valuable research directions of grey model technology in agricultural science research can be more clearly grasped.

The purpose of this paper is to present the current state research of cyber-physical system (CPS) and its application in libraries. CPS is a kind of large-scale and networked system that consists of physical and cyber elements and is currently of interest in academia, industry and government. In this survey, the definitions, theoretical foundation and basic applications of CPS are systematically reviewed. In addition, the development of library and current research of CPS application in library management are presented. The vision and challenge of smart library are also discussed.

By retrieving the main scholarly databases, the literature of CPS and its application in libraries were examined.

This study shows that a lot of CPS technology applications are still in initial stage, and explores CPS potential impacts on libraries.

The application of CPS in library management has not been paid much attention, this study provides a prospective for the application of CPS in libraries.

To design an efficient and integrated framework for automated and simple data acquisition and processing targeted for first response scenarios.

Utilizes existing software/hardware integration tools and primarily off‐the‐shelf components. Use the modular system architecture for development of new applications. System construction is preceded by the analysis of currently available devices for specific data acquisition and processing.

The development and integration of data acquisition and processing tools for first responder scenarios can be rapidly achieved by the modular and already existing software/hardware integration platform. Data types processed by this system are biometrics, live video/audio and textual/command data. The data acquisition is followed by the prompt dissemination of information from the incident scene thus overcoming interoperability issues.

Integration of new modules is achieved through simple system upgrades – new applications are created and integrated while the rest of the platform remains intact. Off‐the‐shelf components used eliminate the need for specialized hardware development. The speech user interface allows simple interaction with the system in an eyes‐off, hands‐off manner.

The system represents an efficient platform for integrated data acquisition and processing specially targeted for first response. The test‐bed flexibility allows for straightforward integration of devices/applications handling new data type as required by the user.

This paper aims to examine the goal, which is to construct a user interface for CERIF‐compatible research management systems in an automated way. The system has to support all data items defined by the CERIF data model. The result of the automated construction is a functioning software system that can be customised according to the specific needs by manual changes in the program code.

The Model‐Driven Architecture (MDA) approach to software engineering is based on the idea of automated construction of software applications based on the model of a system. System modelling usually utilises the Unified Modelling Language (UML). A specific UML profile (extension) used for describing user interface‐related aspects of the system model is defined. It is used to define the behaviour of the user interface in the model itself. By relying on the concept of a standard generic screen form implementing common data management operations and tools for automatic code generation it is possible to obtain a fully functional software application that is completely defined by the system model.

A proposal of an automated user interface construction method for CERIF‐compatible research management systems is defined. The proposed application enables the management of all CERIF‐specified data items and facilitates the customisation of the model according to the specific needs. The customisation process is automated by using the tools for user interface code generation based on human‐computer interaction (HCI) standard defining the layout and behaviour of generic screen forms. The amount of automatically generated application functionality justifies the use of the model‐driven approach to software development.

Using the model of a system it is possible to efficiently produce a functional software application that can further be customised according to the needs of specific institutions and users. The customisation process itself is made efficient since it is iteratively performed using the same cycles of modelling and software generation. The proposed method for automated user interface construction is used for implementing the web application for research management at the University of Novi Sad.

A proposal for efficient software system development and its customisation is given. This way a software application is obtained that can be quickly adapted to new requirements and used in different research management systems based on a CERIF‐compatible data model.