Interested in subscribing to our Newslist?  Click here

This page contains news regarding UPGRADE, The European Journal for the Informatics Professional, and UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork).

UPGRADE is a technical, independent, non-commercial, and freely distributed electronic publication, promoted by CEPIS (Council of European Professional Informatics Societies), an organization that unites 37 Informatics Professional Societies from 33 European countries and is the voice of more than 200,000 ICT Professionals in our continent.

UPENET is the network of publications, paper or electronic, from CEPIS member societies. It has UPGRADE as its anchor point.

Comments, criticisms, suggestions are much welcome and should be sent to the Editorial Team of UPGRADE.

• Fifth anniversary issue of UPGRADE available (editions in Italian and Spanish too)
• Exhibition of sculptures of the Spanish artist Antonio Crespo Foix, designer of the cover pages of UPGRADE
  
• Call for Contributions to MOSAIC (reminder)
  

This issue, corresponding to October 2005, is available now at our website.

This issue features the following sections:

• Editorial by the President of CEPIS, Geoff McMullen, commenting on the 5th anniversary of our digital journal.

• A monograph that, under the title "Computing Omnipresence", covers an ICT field, Ubiquitous Computing, of growing importance because it provides us with computing capabilities anywhere anytime through new networks, devices and applications.

• UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork), with articles from the journals Pro Dialog (CEPIS Polish society PIPS) and Mondo Digitale (CEPIS Italian society AICA).

• In Spanish (full issue printed; summary, presentation, abstracts and some articles online) by Novática, journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática),  issue 177 (Sep.-Oct. 2005.) Available soon.

• In Italian (online edition only, containing summary, presentation and abstracts) by the Italian CEPIS society ALSI (Associazione Nazionale Laureati in Scienze dell'Informazione ed Informatica) and the Italian IT portal Tecnoteca. Available soon.

The Spanish artist Antonio Crespo Foix, who designs the beautiful and sometimes intriguing cover pages of UPGRADE, is presenting an exhibition of his sculptures in the Michel Soskine gallery of Madrid, from Nov. 20 to Dec. 23.

Members of CEPIS societies visiting Madrid in this period are kindly invited to visit the exhibition (free entrance).

Photos of some of the sculptures exhibited can be seen by clicking here.

The slide show of the covers designed by Crespo Foix for UPGRADE and Novática is available in our website.

• August 2005 issue of UPGRADE available (editions in Italian and Spanish too)
• Call for Contributions to MOSAIC (reminder)
  

The August 2005 issue is available now at our website.

This issue features the following blocks:

• A monograph dedicated to explore the intensive and extensive standardization and normalization activities that are taking place in field of Information and Communication Technologies as far as security is concerned. The title of the monograph is "Standardization for ICT Security", where a group of top European specialists in the matter analyse an area that is growing in importance due to the fact that they deal with an asset as information that is critical both from the social and economic points of view in an increasingly globalised world.
  

The guest editors of this monograph are well known names in the wide community of bodies and people which deal with this subject: Paloma García-López (AENOR, Spain), Prof. Stefanos Gritzalis (University of Aegean, Greece), and Prof. Javier López-Muñoz (Universidad de Málaga, Spain).

• MOSAIC section, where we publish an article where a new framewok for QoS (Quality of Services) approaches for web services is proposed.

• UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) section, where an article from the Spanish  journal Novática, written by Llorenç Pagés-Casas, is included that analyses an important lawsuit on software patents that took place in the USA a few moths ago.

  We gladly invite you to browse in this issue and make your own selection.

• In Spanish (full issue printed; summary, presentation, abstracts and some articles online) by Novática, journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática),  issue 175 (July-August 2005.) Available soon.

• In Italian (online edition only, containing summary, presentation and abstracts) by the Italian CEPIS society ALSI (Associazione Nazionale Laureati in Scienze dell'Informazione ed Informatica) and the Italian IT portal Tecnoteca. Available soon.

• June 2005 issue of UPGRADE available (editions in Italian and Spanish too)
• Call for Contributions to MOSAIC (reminder)
  

The June 2005 issue is available now at our website.

This issue features:

• A monograph dedicated to analyse the evolution of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS). Under the title "Libre Software as A Field of Study", several high class specialists review the challenges this movement faces after a decade of continuous progress, where a handful of its key products (Linux, Apache, Firefox, OpenOffice, ...) have made deep inroads in IT departments of  of business and government, and reached a very large audience of end users worldwide.

It must be remarked that the monograph has been produced in cooperation with the European project CALIBRE (Co-ordination Action for LIBRE Software).

The guest editors of this monograph are two outstanding names in the Free Software community: Prof. Jesús M. González-Barahona (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid, Spain) and Prof. Stefan Koch (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria). Prof. González-Barahona has already guest-edited two highly successful monographs on Free Software for UPGRADE (in 2001 and 2003), jointly with Novática, and a pioneer one for the latter in 1997.

• MOSAIC section, where we publish two papers - one about Computational Linguistics and another one about Software Engineering -, plus a handful of significant reactions about the July 6th vote of the European Parliament against the controversial proposal on software patents from the European Commission.

• UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) section, where you will find two articles.The first one, by Olga Georgiades-Van der Pol, is from the Cyprus journal Pliroforiki, and deals with the security, surveillance and monitoring of electronic communications at the workplace. The second, from the Italian journal Mondo Digitale, written by Andrea G.B. Tettamanzi, describes the concepts and aplications of Evolutionary Computation.

  We gladly invite you to browse in this issue and make your own selection.

• In Spanish (full issue printed; summary, presentation, abstracts and some articles online) by Novática, journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática),  issue 175 (May-June 2005.) Available soon.

• In Italian (online edition only, containing summary, presentation and abstracts) by the Italian CEPIS society ALSI (Associazione Nazionale Laureati in Scienze dell'Informazione ed Informatica) and the Italian IT portal Tecnoteca. Available soon.

• April 2005 issue of UPGRADE available (editions in Italian and Spanish too)
• Full Schedule of UPGRADE for 2005 published
• UPGRADE present in the IPv6 Global Summit
• Call for Contributions to MOSAIC (reminder)
  

The April 2005 issue is available now at our website.

This issue features:

• A monograph dedicated to the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Under the title "IPv6 - More than A Protocol", it presents, from a critical point of view, the interesting possibilities and functionalities of this protocol, considered as a new networking paradigm.

  The guest editors of this monograph are three outstanding specialists in the matter: Prof. Jordi Domingo-Pascual (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain), Prof, Alberto García-Martínez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain), and Matthew Ford (BT Exact, United Kingdom).

• MOSAIC section, where we publish two papers - one about Mobile Networks and another one  about Performance Analysis) -, plus several news about the European Commission,  ECDL (European Computer Driving Certificate), EUCIP (EUropean Certificate for Informatics Professionals) and the announcement of the IPv6 Global Summit.

• UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) section, where you will find two articles.The first one is from the Polish journal Pro Dialog, and deals with the process of teaching IT in secondary schools, written by Henryk Budzisz, Krzysztof Kadowski, and Walery Suslow. The second,  from the Spanish journal Novática, written by Fernando Sáez-Vacas, describes the concept of "Digital Universal Network", that, according to the author, goes far beyond the Internet.

  We gladly invite you to browse in this issue and make your own selection.

• In Spanish (full issue printed; summary, presentation, abstracts and some articles online) by Novática, journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática),  issue 174 (March-April 2005.) Available soon.

• In Italian (online edition only, containing summary, presentation and abstracts) by the Italian CEPIS society ALSI (Associazione Nazionale Laureati in Scienze dell'Informazione ed Informatica) and the Italian IT portal Tecnoteca. Available soon.

• First 2005 issue of UPGRADE available (editions in Italian and Spanish too)
• Wilkes Award of The Computer Journal
• Change in UPGRADE staff
• Call for Contributions to MOSAIC (reminder)
  

Our February 2005 issue is available now at our website.

This issue features:

• A monograph dedicated to XML, under the title "XML Today", where the articles provide an interesting overview of this increasingly accepted standard format for structured documents and data on the Web. It updates the facts and trends of our monograph on the same subject appeared in August 2002.

  The guest editors of this monograph are two world-class specialists in the matter: Prof. Carlos Delgado Kloos (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain), who also guest edited our 2002 edition, and Charles McCathieNevile (W3C, World Wide Web Consortium).

• MOSAIC section, where we publish a paper about WiFi, plus several news about ATI, BCS, DND and ECDL (European Computer Driving Certificate), and a book review.

• UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) section, where you will find three articles.The first one is from the Italian journal Mondo Digitale, covering an interesting experience for the IT profession: the Italian ICT Competences and Certifications Observatory; the authors are Graziano Dragoni, Chiara Francalanci, Clementina Marinoni, and Paola Tarantini A detailed description of the experiences of the Austrian CEPIS society OCG with ECDL, from the OCG Journal, written by Rupert Lemmel-Seedorf, comes second. The last piece is an article from Pliroforiki, the journal from the Cyprus CEPIS society CCS; written by Vernon Poole and Kevin Hayes it covers the field of information security governance in today's corporate environments.

  We gladly invite you to browse in dly invite you to browse in this issue and make your own selection.

• In Spanish (full issue printed; summary, presentation, abstracts and some articles online) by Novática, journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática),  issue 173 (January-February 2005.) Available soon.

• In Italian (online edition only, containing summary, presentation and abstracts) by the Italian CEPIS society ALSI (Associazione Nazionale Laureati in Scienze dell'Informazione ed Informatica) and the Italian IT portal Tecnoteca. Available soon.

Changes in Upgrade Staff

In January 2005, the judgement for the Award for Volume 47 (2004) was carried out by:

• Prof. Erol Gelenbe, FACM, FIEEE, FIEE, Electrical Engineering, Imperial College London, UK.
• Prof. Fairouz Kamareddine, FBCS, FIMA, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.
• Prof. C. J. van Rijsbergen, MBCS, FIEE, CEng, FRSE, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, UK.
• Dr. John Cooke, MBCS, MACM, MIEEE, FIMA, CEng, CMath, Department of Computer Science, Loughborough University, UK.
• Prof. Mohan Kumar, MIEEE, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of Texas, Arlington, USA.
• Prof. Fionn Murtagh, MRIA, FBCS, Editor-in-Chief, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

The Wilkes Best Paper Award for Volume 47 is:

In Volume 47, the runner-up, with commendations from the panel, is:

February 25, 2005: ROOTS (Recent Object-Oriented Trends) conference - April 27-29, 2005, Bergen (Norway)



The ROOTS (Recent Object-Oriented Trends) conference is a forum for presentation, debate and study of the latest object oriented theories and practices. The conference is held in Norway, the country in which the OO technology finds its roots on. The Norwegian Computing Society (DND), CEPIS and regional firms sponsor this symposium.

ROOTS 2005 is the sixth annual event with participating experts from Norway, the UK, and the USA. ROOTS fills a special niche in the realm of OO conferences by offering topics intended to bring together the software practitioner and those who manage software intensive projects. The speakers are drawn from the fields of management and process improvement as well as renowned mentors in the areas of security, testing and Human Usability. Our target audience is European IT professionals and their managers. Members of CEPIS member societies all enjoy the same discounts.

Do not miss our exciting new format, and the opportunity for your team to learn the latest trends in OO techniques, TOGETHER. The conference language is English. Further information is available at  <http://roots.dnd.no> .

• December 2004 issue of UPGRADE available (editions in Italian and Spanish too)
• Access statistics: average of 303 daily visits in 2004
• Schedule of issues of UPGRADE for 2005 published
  
• Cover pages of UPGRADE: a beautiful show of Art
  
• Call for Contributions for MOSAIC (reminder)
  

Our December 2004 issue is available now at our website.

In addition to the greetings of our Editorial Team, this issue features:

• Monograph dedicated to Cryptography, under the title "The Keys of Cryptography". The articles contained in this section cover several aspects of this technology, which is key for the security of information and hence for the development of our Knowledge Society.

• MOSAIC section, where we publish a paper about Query Languages, plus several news about CEPIS and ECDL (European Computer Driving Certificate).

• UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) section, where you will find three articles. One is from the Polish journal Pro Dialog, where the authors presents the idea of utilization of the transaction concept in the process of refreshing a data warehouse with versioning capabilities. The second one is from the Italian journal Mondo Digitale, with an overview of Web Services, the technologies currently involved, and the open problems that the research community is dealing with. The last piece is an interview first published in the Austrian journal OCG Journal, where Prof. Niklaus Wirth explains his views on the general issue of history of informatics and his personal reflections on both the past and the future role of informatics.
  

We gladly invite you to browse in this issue and make your own selection.

As usual, given the European-wide nature of UPGRADE, the monograph of this issue will be also published:

• In Spanish (full issue printed; summary, presentation, abstracts and some articles online) by Novática, journal of the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática),  issue 172 (November-December 2004.) Available soon.

• In Italian (online edition only, containing summary, presentation and abstracts) by the Italian CEPIS society ALSI (Associazione Nazionale Laureati in Scienze dell'Informazione ed Informatica) and the Italian IT portal Tecnoteca. Available soon.

Access statistics: average of 303 unique daily visits in 2004

According to the figures provided by our statistic tool (HTTP Analyzer), the access statistics of UPGRADE for 2004 show that our digital journal is making steady progress as far as its readership is concerned.

Details are as follows:

• Unique visits: 110,584 (daily average: 303), up from 47,278 in 2003.
  
• Total files downloaded: 645,077
• 10 most visiting domains:
  
• .com
• .net
  
• .it (Italy)
• .es (Spain)
• .uk (United Kingdom)
• .de (Germany)
• .fr (France)
• .ch (Switzerland)
  
• .edu
• .nl (Nederland)

The schedule of issues of UPGRADE for 2005 has been announced. The topics that will be covered in the monographic sections of the first two issues will be the following ones:

• Vol. VI, issue no. 1 (February 2005): "XML (eXtensible Markup Language)"
  

• Vol. V, issue no. 2 (April 2005): "IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6)"

The rest of the schedule for this year will be published as soon as possible.

At the request of some readers we have reunited in a single page the thumbnails of all the cover pages produced by the Spanish artist Antonio Crespo Foix for UPGRADE from its very first issue (and for Novática too since 1996). Crespo Foix, a recognized and recognizable artist, is highly skillful and inspired in the translation of his inner perspective about the topics covered by our monographs into beautiful and very often intriguing pieces of colourful art.

To see the cover pages, click here.