Abstract
The MPEG experts are currently developing the MPEG-21 set of standards and this includes a framework and specifications for digital rights management (DRM), delivery of quality of services (QoS) over heterogeneous networks and terminals, packaging of multimedia content and other things essential for the infrastructural aspects of multimedia content distribution. Considerable research effort is being applied to these new developments and the capabilities of MPEG-21 technologies to address specific application areas are being investigated. One such application area is broadcasting, in particular the development of digital TV and its services. In more practical terms, digital TV addresses networking, events, channels, services, programs, signaling, encoding, bandwidth, conditional access, subscription, advertisements and interactivity. MPEG-21 provides an excellent framework of standards to be applied in digital TV applications. Within the scope of this research work we describe a new model based on MPEG-21 and its relevance to digital TV: the digital broadcast item model (DBIM). The goal of the DBIM is to elaborate the potential of MPEG-21 for digital TV applications. Within this paper we focus on a general description of the DBIM, quality of service (QoS) management and metadata filtering, digital rights management and also present use-cases and scenarios where the DBIM's role is explored in detail.

Abstract
Statecharts was conceived as a visual formalism for the design of reactive systems. UML statecharts is an object-based variant of classical statecharts, incorporating several concepts different from the classical statecharts. This paper discusses a coalgebraic description of UML statecharts, directly derived from its operational semantics. In particular such an approach induces suitable notions of equivalence and (behavioral) refinement for statecharts. Finally, a few refinement laws are investigated to support verifiable stepwise system development with statecharts.

Abstract
In the global market, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face increasing competition from large corporations for the control of the more profitable business areas. These corporations compensate for their lower agility and flexibility with easier access to information, resources and economies of scale. The virtual enterprise model of a business organization is thus often seen as one of the best strategic moves for SMEs to achieve a global reach without compromising their independence. This emerging business paradigm certainly brings new challenges to many areas of the enterprise, one of which is the quality assurance of external processes and contracted products and services. This paper introduces and discusses the issue of quality assurance within the scope of virtual and networked enterprises, and presents a novel methodology for the integration of quality management into enterprise modelling and for quality certification of the virtual enterprise. This is especially important because quality certification is becoming mandatory in nearly all markets and the well-established certification methods do not cover all the aspects of the virtual enterprise. ISO 9001:2000, the most widely used quality management system standard in the world, is presented as an interesting starting point for virtual enterprise quality management system implementation and certification. Further requirements include broadening the scope of the quality management system to include the whole enterprise life cycle, i.e. from its creation to decommission. Current auditing procedures will have to be adapted to this new business environment and, to meet such a requirement, a continuous real-time third-party auditing mechanism-fully integrated into the virtual enterprise--model is proposed. A pilot/simulator, implemented in a small virtual enterprise, in the occupational safety and health-care business, is used to illustrate the new environment as well as the novel requirements that quality systems will have to meet in the future.

Abstract

Abstract
Internet and information technologies have changed the way people interact and make business all over the world. Unfortunately, this is not completely true in the sense that the fast progress fostered by more dynamic economies has in fact been contributing to widening the so-called digital divide between rich and poor. This is a particularly true for small and medium enterprises in remote communities that face a number of obstacles and difficulties due to their family business structure, limited access to information and communication infrastructure. This paper presents a P2P infrastructure for a distributed e-Marketplace that aims at bringing together tourism operators, players of crafts and agro-eco-cultural tourism sectors living in remote communities, in order to provide them the opportunity to join, at a reduced cost, to the information society and reach new markets.

Abstract
This paper presents an approach to the identification of requirements for the implementation of e-business solutions in small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The approach is based oil the so-called reference models whose main purpose is to guide the process of deriving the detailed requirements for business processes and information systems support, regarding e-business activities. Firstly, an overview of the particular aspects and main difficulties of the adoption of e-business by SME is presented. This overview justifies the methodology for the implementation of e-business in SME, developed within the EC funded project MEDIAT-SME, shortly described here. Next, it is focused a particular aspect of this methodology, the reference models approach, followed by an example of its application on a real SME. Finally, the advantages and difficulties of the approach are discussed.