Establishing the Foundation of Collaborative Networks: IFIP TC 5 Working Group 5.5 Eighth IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises September 10- [Paperback]

This book includes a number of selected papers from the PRO-VE '07 Conference providing a comprehensive overview of recent advances in various CN domains. Thereis a special emphasis on the Collaborative Network topics related to trust aspects, performance and value systems, VO breeding environments, VO creation, e-contracting, collaborative architectures and frameworks, professional virtual communities, interoperability issues, business benefits, and case studies and applications in industry and services.

Trust Aspects in Collaboration.- Performance and Value Systems.- Collaboration Network Analysis.- VO Breeding Environment Enablers.- Elements of Breeding Environments Management.- VO Creation.- e-Contracting in Collaborative Network Scenarios.- Learning and Inheritance in VO.- Architectures for Collaboration.- Modelling Frameworks for Collaborative Networks.- Business Benefits in Networks.- Professional Virtual Communities.- Customer Involvement in Networks.- Social Network Analysis.- Interoperability in Networks.- Collaborative Process Models.- Process Integration and Management.- Web Services and Fusion.- Collaboration Environments Cases.- Product-Oriented Collaboration.- Adaptive Collaborative Frameworks.- Evaluation and Management of Collaborative Supply Networks.

While today production and service provision constitute the main areas of application for Collaborative Networks (CNs) worldwide, during the last decade the paradigm is extending to many new application areas. These developments emphasize the need for establishing a sounder foundation for collaborative networks, namely in terms of theoretical principles and formal models, capturing the concepts, entities, behaviors, and operations of the CNs, and developing technology-independent infrastructure architectures, tools and methodologies.

As a new scientific discipline, research on different aspects of CNs is gaining momentum. As a result of malã+