The book is organized into six parts, including an illustrating case study. Part 1 briefly covers the basic ideas underlying the economic, technological, social and legal aspects of pervasive systems. Part 2 then describes several aspects of sensor networks and data stream processing, while part 3 highlights the main aspects of social networks with a special emphasis on cultural heritage applications. Next, part 4 details personalization and context awareness issues in pervasive environments, and part 5 reports on multimedia aspects, again with a particular focus on cultural heritage. The overall picture of the technological challenges and opportunities are illustrated in part 6 with the support of a cultural heritage case study, the DATABENC1 project on Italy's Campania region. Each part is accompanied by its own foreword.