Preface

The title of this book *"Emerging Informatics- Innovative Concepts and Applications"* encompasses emerging concepts and applications of information systems (IS) development. The word "*Emerging Informatics*" expresses focal interest and its meaning which has been reflected on different promising application areas in this book. The word "*emerging*" represents most prominent new concepts or application areas and the word "*informatics*" refers to how the new concepts and applications are created, constructed and purposefully used through particular forms of information models.

Prof. John Gammack and his colleagues (in the Book of Informatics) state that informatics is the "*art and science of information"*. It is about human knowledge and how it is constructed for useful meaning and purpose, for instance enhancing the processes we experience and use in our daily life. Furthermore, *the University of Edinburgh* (URL: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/informatics /about/vision/ overview) suggests that *Informatics* incorporates research and learning aspects in a number of existing academic disciplines - Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Computer Science. It is all about connecting thoughts, concepts and applications to design and guide purposeful knowledge creation. In my book, I am exploring the connecting elements between technologies and different problem spaces in an attempt to design and create artificial systems for human operations and businesses.

Informatics as a discipline has many fields with their own bodies of significant knowledge. Many application areas and concepts are growing through new research explorations nowadays. The new areas and ideas help us outline the problems and produce subsequent solutions for the future. This enhances our understanding of emerging informatics and helps to prepare for the world we will experience tomorrow.

I have edited this book keeping in mind that we should continuously be addressing the demands by providing useful knowledge that contributes to the enhancement of the current body of informatics discipline. The author of each chapter brings their individual research and relevant contributions to their area of interest. I have had no control as editor, over the quality and rigorousness of the research that they have presented in their chapter. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of the authors for their significant contributions to this book.

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The book has been produced for the researchers and industry practitioners who are interested in learning about the emerging fields and applications in informatics. It has been structured into four sections. Section 1 (S*pecialised informatics and applications)* provides induced technical concepts to emergent problem solving. Section 2 (*Emerging business informatics and applications)* includes technical concepts for business applications. Section 3 (*Emerging informatics in railways)* includes innovative approaches for effective and efficient railway system design and development. Finally, section 4 (*Emerging web informatics and applications*) includes new technologies for web service design.

I will be pleased if this book could contribute to the human community and its systems on this planet in some small way. I would like to thank all those who have contributed to publishing this work.

> **Dr Shah Jahan Miah**, Lecturer of Information Systems at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
